


Lost Violent Souls

by mabus101



Series: Lost Violent Souls [1]
Category: Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-31
Updated: 2015-06-18
Packaged: 2018-03-04 14:32:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 21
Words: 44,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3071657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mabus101/pseuds/mabus101
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before the Breaking, before the War of Power, there was the Age of Legends, and thirteen men and women who would betray Light for Shadow.  They became known as the Forsaken.  They were among the most powerful beings of their time.</p>
<p>But who were they, really?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fused Glass

They gathered on the black glass by the thousands, men and women, human and Ogier-even a few Nym scattered through the crowd. Few of them could channel, yet among those few were some of the most powerful Servants in the world. There were Aiel there in working clothes, and the Holder of the Third Rod of Dominion.

In the past this place had sometimes been closed to the public, for the crowd stood on the grounds of the Collam Daan, and even the most stringent safety measures were not always enough when certain experiments were going on. That was why the death toll had not been greater. Even so, more lives had been claimed than in any accident in a hundred years-well over four hundred of the world's best and brightest, and all who had worked with them.

The Sharom had fallen here one year ago, spouting black twisting flame. Space and time had wrenched themselves. Two thirds of the campus had burned in that unnatural fire, despite the efforts of a dozen channelers and a hundred disaster workers. One thousand three hundred thirteen men and women-many Aes Sedai, but far from all. Researchers, students, janitorial staff, firemen and paramedics, a trio of children there with their mother...

The last names were, at this moment, being carved into the glass.

"We cannot bring them back," she said. "They are beyond us now. We miss the love and friendship. We miss the intensity of their minds, the secrets they might yet have found. We miss even the power that destroyed them, when our attempt to harness it failed. But most of all, we miss them. We who survived."

No one should have been able to survive that unimaginable blast. For most, no body remained to bury. There had been fragments of bone and charred tissue. Silhouettes had been painted in ash on the untarnishable walls of the Collam Daan. Those in the Sharom itself, some researchers thought, might have been ripped beyond atoms by some unthinkable singularity.

And then there was the woman standing before them today.

"There are, no doubt, some of you who resent my survival. In the Light's truth, I admit I do as well. My friends and colleagues died here, and I...I alone..." Tears trickled down her face.

Half an hour after the blast subsided, with rescue workers still combing the outlying buildings, a gateway had opened, and Mierin Eronaile Sedai had stumbled from the Unseen World onto the hot black glass, burn scars marring much of the left side of her body. There had been a cursory investigation into the disaster, but the tertiary backups in the surviving computers had shown no indication of wrongdoing. Not that anyone could have had the heart to punish Mierin beyond the pain she still inflicted on herself today. She had not earned her third name, of course, but there would be time for that; no one doubted her career would go on. The burns, of course, were long gone.

She struggled for a moment, then flipped through several pages. "This...this memorial will stand to the end of the Age, if not longer. We will not forget those whom we lost. Their names are inscribed on this sea of glass, and in our hearts. There they will live on, until the Wheel turns and they are reborn."

"Thank you to those of you who worked on this memorial. Thank you to those who have gathered here to pay your respects. Thank you to our surviving friends and families who could not be here today, but who have sustained us in our grief. And...and...thank you for saving me, Beidomon Neravan Sedai. Without you, only my name would have been here today."

Mierin gathered herself visibly and gestured for the platform of air to be lowered. "I give you my colleague, Joar Addam Nessosin Sedai."

Joar coughed and ahemed for a moment as his colleagues made some final adjustments to their instruments. "Thank you, Mierin. All of us are deeply moved today, by your words and by the memory of loss. I call this piece 'Meditation on Dark Fire'. I hope it touches your hearts. I hope it soothes your griefs, even just a little." He ran his fingers over the keys of his obaen and began to play, softly.

Perhaps it was not his best piece, the mourners agreed. But then, perhaps it was not fitting that his best piece be reserved for such a tragedy as this. They stood, swaying in time to the music, as the band of the Prodigy of Shorelle played and sang.

Dark whispers rose with the music, whispers that wound their way not into the listeners' ears, but directly into their minds and hearts. The whispers were not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time.

But they were a beginning.


	2. Gateways

Eval Ramman was starting to worry.

He was surrounded by more security personnel than he'd seen at any three drunken brawls, and he hadn't even gotten involved in one this time. Instead of standard city security brown, these wore the grey-green of high-level government agents. Two of them could channel-though, admittedly, he wasn't sure why they didn't have a buffer on him if he was really in this much trouble.

"Let me guess," said the weedy-looking woman in front of him. "You have no idea why you're even here, do you?" She wasn't much to look at-minimal breasts, the butt of a teenage boy, and close-cropped brown hair. Such a disappointment. And she was taller than him, too. Eval didn't much care for tall women, though admittedly a nice rack covered a multitude of sins. She was wearing the bland blue-white robes of a researcher, too. Eval preferred women with less on their minds.

"Not in the slightest," Eval confessed. "I wasn't aware of having committed any crimes. At least, not since I was publicly censured three months ago."

She sighed. "You're not in any trouble, Eval. My name is Letan Obral Denethyst. I'm with the Venus terraforming project. You've heard of it?"

"Everyone's heard of it," Eval agreed. "I don't see what it has to do with me, unless you're suggesting an exile for those of us who give grief to security agents."

"I wouldn't have expected it to have anything to do with you," Letan said disparagingly. "But it seems there's a first time for everything. Or rather, there isn't. If you'll sign this nondisclosure agreement, I'll show you what I mean."

Eval shrugged and scribbled his name on the tablet she held out. She led him over to the secured door at the side of the room and opened it with a wave of her hand. Eval blinked. The ter'angreal had read her soul, not her genetic profile-a procedure reserved for ultra-secure facilities. He supposed he'd expected as much for the project, but not to actually be allowed through any such door. It stayed open for him, though.

"Seize the Source. The _sa'angreal_ 's embedded in the floor," Letan ordered. "You know how this works?"

Eval nodded. The room was a grey metal box painted with a distinctive symbol on each wall. In theory, Travelling anywhere in the universe involved the same procedure as Travelling on Earth, but since you had to know your surroundings down the the subatomic level to pull it off, actually getting it to work took extreme measures. Also, a _sa'angreal_. Eval reached through it and seized _saidin_ , drinking deeper until he could feel the patterns embedded in the wall's deep structure.

"We expect all personnel involved to be able to open a gateway themselves," Letan added. "Too much liability if someone could be trapped on Venus. There's another _sa'angreal_ at the other end. I'm going to take us this time, but everyone needs to learn this room." She breathed in deeply, and the gate opened.

There was a vague, diffuse glow in the sky that Eval supposed was the sun until Letan pointed out the force dome surrounding the encampment. "It's the middle of the night, but obviously we have to keep the web maintaining the atmosphere going at all times."

"I'm still in the dark as to why I'm even here. My field of expertise is extinct cultures, specifically the-"

"You were recommended by Detosh, Haila, and Berun, who are all also going to be here working with you. We expect you to be on your best behavior, but if you actually do so, and live up to your reputation in your specialty, you might just get a third name at last. You know the Rignei hypothesis, of course. Time is a repeating sequence of seven ages. History fades to legend, legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten by the time the age it was based on comes around again. The transphysicists insist on it, and an increasing number of philosophers believe it...but you see the problem, right?"

Eval chuckled. "How do you verify a theory of history that explicitly states the evidence needed is long gone?"

Letan smiled faintly in return. "Now, it's generally agreed that history doesn't repeat in every detail. All the same, we know that the age before us never reached the level of technology required to land humans on Venus. And it's generally agreed that the age before that-call it Seventh or Zeroth, depending on who you ask-was an age of nomadic primitives. So it's been at least two ages-around eight to ten thousand years-since anyone could possibly have been here."

"But we're here." Eval gave a start. "Wait...you're saying that there could be-and therefore, that there is-evidence of a previous expedition. Here. On Venus. And it's at least ten thousand years old?"

"Our best estimates at present say roughly twelve thousand. Not old enough to be the last iteration of our age, of course, if we're correct...but that, Eval Sedai, is exactly what you're here to help us figure out."

*****

The bunker was nothing out of the ordinary, if rather spartan. Eval thought it looked rather like the lower-class apartment he had grown up in, save for the extra beds. At the far end of the chamber, though, a rough door had been hacked out of the rock. And beyond...

"I have to admit this doesn't look much like anything I'm familiar with," he reluctantly acknowledged. "The script seems analogous to some cuneiform types I've encountered, but not enough for me to think I can make out words or even sounds." Some of the equipment looked electronic, some had the feel of the One Power about it...and some resembled nothing Eval had ever seen before. The only really familiar thing in the room was a rusted remnant of a chair.

"It's too bad the complex isn't more extensive," Letan murmured. "There'd be more of a chance of finding something useful. There are two particular sites of interest, however." She gestured toward a door on the left. "Over there is the stasis room." She led Eval through into a gallery of bone-filled chambers.

"They don't seem to have had modern stasis technology," Eval observed. A proper stasis box would have preserved its occupants alive right up to this moment. In theory, at least.

Letan shook her head. "They seem to have used some form of cryogenic freeze. Unfortunately, it failed a very long time ago. We don't even know why they were in here, except..."

"What?"

"If they saw the end of the Age, and it came in the form of some disaster, maybe they sealed themselves inside in the hope of waiting it out."

"Well, that didn't work out well for them."

"No, I suppose not. The other room is in here. We call it the gate room."

The gate room-beyond the stasis chambers-was a bit of a disappointment. Yes, there was a big bronze rectangle that looked a bit like a door, and the equipment arrayed in front of it was surely meant to do something. What that might be evaded him, though. He had a brief flash of a network of gates extending across the galaxy, but surely that would have disrupted the cycle of ages a long time ago.

"This is the closest we have to a rosetta stone. There are two very different forms of writing here. There might have been multiple languages in use at the time, but in all honesty it looks more as if the 'gate'-if that's what it is-is from an even earlier era, and they were trying to figure it out too." Letan picked up a notebook whose pages seemed to be made from some form of plastic. "Unfortunately, we're not familiar with either system."

Eval glanced over the notebook. "You're right that it's different." The pages were filled with some form of cursive script, festooned with loops and curlicues. "You know, it looks a lot like the writing from the Portal Stones, but the timing is all wrong." Then a thought struck him. "Maybe the people who made the Portal Stones were here too, or found another ruin like this one. Their fragments on chaos theory and quantum mechanics are consistent with the purpose of the Stones, but no one's ever worked out the connection between the Stones themselves and the consistently electronics-based technology of the First Age."

"Then this could be a gate, but not to other planets?" Letan's voice rose in surprise. "To other mirror worlds, maybe? But why here?"

Eval shrugged at her. "I once came across a book about mirror worlds that were different because the planets were changed. Maybe it leads to a world where Venus is habitable already. Other than that...I couldn't tell you."

Letan nodded. "I've heard worse theories. I have to admit it, your reputation is correct when it comes to your intelligence, too."

"Not just my temper and my terrible womanizing ways?" He chuckled. "I'm not that bad a fellow, Letan. I'm just a little short on patience. Life is short, you know."

Letan raised an eyebrow at him. "I'd guess you have several hundred years left in you, Eval."

"How old is this ruin, Letan? You said your best estimates indicated twelve millennia, and, honestly, I think it might be older than that. Compared to that, we are babes crawling through the debris of ages." Eval shook his head. "Given my wish, I would live for all eternity, and maybe one day I'd actually understand what's going on."

"When you put it that way," Letan said quietly, "I'm not sure I wouldn't join you."

*****

Some people couldn't have slept in an ancient tomb like this. Eval had accepted over a hundred years ago that there was nowhere in the world that was not a tomb-you just had to go back far enough. Your food's very molecules had been part of some human somewhere less than a thousand years ago. If that was disgusting or frightening, well, death was to blame for that, not him.

In short, Eval slept like a baby. Just how long, he couldn't have said, largely because he was woken by Letan shaking him and screaming in his ear.

"Get up! Get up, you imbecile! What have you done?"

"Me?"

"You're the new factor! You...you...you've been asleep the whole time, haven't you? Never mind, get _up_!"

"What's going on?" Eval rubbed his eyes blearily.

"We have to get out of here. They've already killed Haila. Berun, Detosh, and Jonneth are trying to hold them off."

"Them?" Eval pulled on his pants, leaving the rest.

"You'll have to see to believe me."

"Just tell me." He started for the door.

"The dead. They came out of the stasis room. They ate Haila's face before we could stop them."

Eval didn't stop moving, but he did protest. "There's nothing more intact than bones in those stasis chambers."

"I told you you wouldn't believe me. You'll see, though."

Berun was holding the main bunker door shut with the Power. "We can't get out this way," she shouted. "They're coming from outside too!"

"What?!" Letan glanced wildly around at the possible remaining exits. "There's nothing out there but barren rock! There wouldn't even be air without the dome!"

"Don't argue with it," Eval snapped. "If the walking dead are outside, they're outside. There's no logic to any of this, and only one way out. We Travel home."

"But the notes, the artifacts...Haila's body!" Jonneth clutched a pair of electronic pads. "We can't leave it all here."

"Do the dead burn?" Eval asked. "I'd have expected you to try that first."

"They burn," Berun acknowledged. "They seem to re-form right out of the ash, though. I think that must be where they came from to begin with."

Eval nodded. "Nothing but dust and bones. If we can't kill them, people, we have to leave. Now, before they-"

The dispensary door burst open and shambling, rotting horrors spilled from it. Eval didn't protest that they'd said the creatures came from the stasis room. He closed his eyes and seized the One Power, reaching for the _sa'angreal_ buried outside. "Somebody open a gateway! I'll hold them off!" Berun started to protest, but he cut the man off. "I'm not dying here, and I don't know this place well enough yet. You want to spend a month Skimming home?"

His skin prickled, Letan spread her arms wide, and a gateway snapped open. "Out!" she snapped. "Eval is right. Take whatever you have and let's get out of here!"

A thing with half a face and no mouth reached for Eval, and he seared it away with Fire and Earth. "Go! Go now!"

Jonneth and Berun dragged Detosh-the bite on his shoulder was red and swollen-through the gateway, careful of the edges on his behalf.

Something grabbed Eval by the shoulders, and he nearly set it aflame before realizing that it was Letan. "Let's go," she snarled, glaring at the creatures that had overrun her sanctum.

"You don't have to tell me twice," he answered, and they leaped through together. The gate snapped shut behind them, severing a still-twitching, half-rotten hand.

"That wasn't the Power," Eval said breathlessly. "Was it something from the bunker, something we set off?"

"I don't know," Letan grumbled. "I didn't feel anything. For all I could tell, it was Ogiersong."

Jonneth gave a wry laugh. "They sure haven't told us about that one."

Letan sighed. "Get Detosh to a Restorer. Then...then we make our report." Eval sighed too, and shook his head. "I'm sorry about your name," she said quietly. "I know the expedition might have meant a lot to you."

Eval made a noise that might have been laughter too; even he wasn't sure. "As much as I wanted that, it's the least of my frustrations right now." He looked her in the eye. "I know my reputation, Letan. I know you think I'm a lecher and a brawler. But I swear this to you: it's the knowledge I regret. I love my work as much as I love a good tumble with a pretty girl. Maybe even a little more." He tried to smile at that, and failed.

Letan met his eyes for a moment. "Then I guess we do have something in common after all. I wish this had all gone differently."

"Just promise me this," Eval said quietly. "Help me find out what happened. You're the physicist here."

"Geophysicist," Letan reminded him. "But you have my word. I swear to try."

Maybe she was worth a night with after all.


	3. Ties That Bind

"Next client," said the receptionist.

Kamarile took a deep breath and smiled. Solving other people's problems was easy; getting them to follow the solutions was hard. Still, society progressed-she was evidence of that-and one day everyone else would reach her level. Exercise self-control. Ignore material goods beyond the minimum. Live simply.

Was it really that hard?

Ah well. She thought for just a moment. "Damendar. Nemene Damendar Boann. Marital counseling."

"Correct," the receptionist intoned. Kamarile wondered briefly if she could design-or even help design-a better AI system for the things. They were good at memory and small talk, but not much else yet. One day soon, perhaps.

The door remained closed and silent, so after a few moments she turned on the waiting room camera. Nemene was a long-term client with a need for confidentiality, so it was always possible that she was being hassled. No, not this time-her daughter appeared to be talking heatedly with her. Finally Nemene smiled and handed the girl back a piece of paper, then patted her absently on the head before heading into the office.

"Tamera can be difficult to deal with at times," Nemene said rather flatly. "Still, I take some pride in her reports. Perhaps she'll go into the sciences one day, or medicine."

"I'm sure she'll take after you or Hassan," Kamarile agreed. "Though it's always possible she'll develop that talent for light sculpture instead."

Nemene sighed, then pressed her lips together disapprovingly. "Something useful would be better."

"Now, now. 'Useful' is a relative term. The arts are an important emotional outlet for society, for one thing. Consider the cathartic effect of the Nessosin concert, for instance."

"Nessosin?" Nemene raised an eyebrow. "I found his new work rather bland, myself. He writes about pain, but seems never to have experienced any. If I want to listen to a piece with no emotional depth, I'll take a Tedronai sound-sculpture over Nessosin any day."

Kamarile smiled faintly. She knew Elan professionally, and his work was more emotional than Nemene seemed to realize. "Sometimes abstraction is a retreat from pain, Nemene, not just a failure to experience it. But you didn't come here to discuss popular music."

"No. I came to discuss pain."

"You're having renewed issues?" Kamarile frowned. "It's been over a decade since your marriage, Nemene. I personally believed Hassan was perfect for you. Intellectually your equal, certainly-"

"But subservient and masochistic. Yes. And it worked for a time, Kamarile. I assure you, he kept my interest for most of that time. If you check my patient record for the past ten years, you will find it almost clean."

"Almost?"

"In the last few months, I have begun having...difficulties. The incidence of annoying patients has begun increasing, and...Kamarile, he enjoys it. You don't understand, do you? At first it was enough to inflict pain and watch him writhe. But recently I have begun to see him differently. What use is it to hurt him if he derives pleasure from it?"

"Well, for one thing, it means that you're not hurting someone who derives no pleasure from it." Kamarile watched Nemene's reaction. Twitching left eye. That was not good. "You say this has only begun in the last few months? Until then you had your urges under adequate control?" Understand. Then change the line of attack.

"It has been at least ten months since I've properly enjoyed bedding him, Kamarile. Then my patients began becoming more frustrating over the last...six, I'd say. Only in the last two months have I hurt anyone, and not yet seriously."

That was an interesting timeframe. She would have to check her records, but it seemed to Kamarile that more troubling problems had begun to darken her doorstep in the last year. "Be sure that you don't, Nemene. My goal here is to help you. It would be a shame to have to report you to the authorities. I believe we can still solve your problems short of...extreme measures."

Nemene's expression darkened. "I will not submit to binding, Kamarile Sedai. I have done no harm to society. I will remind you again, I have hurt no one more than they deserve."

"And I believe you, Nemene, or you wouldn't be sitting comfortably in my office. You're a good person. We all are. It's simply harder for you to express it than most, because of your...desires. But everyone has desires. It's just a matter of keeping them under control."

"Not everyone is so restrained as you. Nor should we have to be. Did we create a world of wonders so that we could pretend they didn't exist? Are you an Incastar, Kamarile? Is that why you deny yourself pleasure? Or are you simply a self-righteous ass?" Nemene blinked. "I apologize. I should not have left my needlework at home."

Kamarile covered by taking a sip of water. "I forgive you, Nemene. You're under a great deal of stress. The last thing I want is to add to it." Because then the woman would seek relief, after all. "You deserve to enjoy the life you want, Nemene, including sexual fulfillment. But you should try and consider that others deserve the same. That's my only rationale, Nemene. Have you not heard the saying, 'Live simply so that others may simply live'? An ancient sentiment, but not entirely obsolete even today. Our society merely obeys it better."

Nemene grimaced. "But why would anyone want to simply live?" The taller woman rose from her seat. "I'm sorry. This was not the best of times. I promise to make another appointment within the next week."

"If you like. Be sure that you keep it, Nemene. I want to help you." Nemene strode out without further comment, and Kamarile put herself through some deep breathing exercises. Be the rose. The riverbank. Pull the steering yoke, not the jo-car itself.

Sometimes she thought it would be so much simpler to just set a web on the brains of people like Nemene. Was that really so much different from using a binder on them? Yet for some reason it was forbidden.

 _Because it's too much of a temptation_ , she reminded herself. "Any further clients?" she asked the receptionist.

"Yarbro Tathan, four-thirty. Anxiety issues."

"Please send him my regrets. I need to cancel. Bring up that new recreation program I downloaded."

"Regrets, Aes Sedai. I cannot comply. That file has been deleted."

"What?" The program was unquestionably legal, though she suspected anyone who knew her would be shocked to find she had it. "When-no, who deleted it?"

"No standard i.d. code. There is a message file in its place, Aes Sedai."

"Let me see that." She swiped her hand across the screen.

The message file read simply: _Are you certain this is sufficient to meet your needs, Kamarile? I have many more...intensive experiences for you, if you wish. A. M._

She leaned back in her seat, grinding her teeth. True, no one who watched the program would really believe the actors were under Compulsion. That was part of the point; it was supposed to sate appetites, not whet them. In any case, "A. M.", whoever he was, had no right to invade her computer and delete her perfectly legal files. Not even security personnel had the right to do that.

She took one more deep breath and began to compose a response.


	4. Dragonslayer

Elan Morin raised an eyebrow as his opponent removed the Fisher from the board. "Rather inelegant."

His opponent shrugged. "I'm not trying for elegance, Elan. I'm not a grandmaster."

Elan considered that. "Interesting theory. You believe you can defeat me more easily by reducing the game to simple melee? Plausible, I suppose. Still..." He shook his head disappointedly. "...very messy, Lews. Very messy."

The younger man nodded while Elan considered his options. "As I said, Elan, I'm just trying to beat you any way I can."

"You have some skill, Lews. And insight. In another few decades, you might well be a grandmaster at sha'rah." Elan shifted a Turret. "But not yet."

Lews Therin's face fell. "Oh. That's going to hurt." He started examining his pawn structure.

"The Fisher is not simply a complication, Lews," Elan pointed out. "It has a range of offensive and defensive options around which the game turns. It is certainly possible for either side to win without it, but removing it is by no means a useful way of reducing the difficulty."

Lews Therin shifted a pawn, removing several of his pieces from the swath of destruction he'd clearly anticipated. Elan simply smiled and moved a pawn of his own. Suddenly Lews Therin's General was exposed to an attack from halfway across the board. "Tsk tsk. I win again, Lews Therin."

Lews ran his fingers through his hair. "I'm not sure I should concede just yet, Elan."

"Regardless of your moves from this point on, you cannot preserve your General for more than five turns, after which your destruction is assured. If you insist on it, though, I will certainly play through the endgame for you."

Lews Therin sighed. "All right. I believe you. You win again."

"Indeed I do." Instead of clearing the board, however, he reached across it and shifted Lews' own left Turret. "Had you done that, the loss of your General would have been irrelevant. I could not have penetrated your lines. However, since you've conceded..."

"You...you lied to me! You said-"

"Lews. It is all part of the game. Should I be honest about my hand when playing chop?"

The shocked expression faded slowly from Lews Therin's face. "You have a point. Still, somehow it doesn't seem like the most honorable path to victory."

"Would you have moved that Turret on your own?"

"Probably not."

"Then your destruction would indeed have been assured, and I spoke the truth. Spend some time thinking about it, Lews Therin. And...might I suggest...less about women?"

Lews groaned and put a hand over his face. "Mierin left another five messages with my service. She's stalking me, Elan Morin."

"I regret that I can't speak to that. I'm afraid I have no recent experience with women. Or men, since you were no doubt about to ask. Did you actually listen to the messages, or are you just assuming that she's pursuing you?"

"Well, what possible reason-"

"-would I have for not telling you that you could protect yourself by moving your Turret?"

"Are you saying it's all a game to her?" Lews Therin muttered something distasteful under his breath.

"I'm saying you should be careful what assumptions you make. Assumptions are never reality, even on the rare occasions they prove correct."

"After today, I'm sure I'll remember that."

Elan smiled. Lews was only a couple of decades younger, but sometimes he seemed so naive. Had Elan been that naive such a short time ago? Then again, Lews was no philosopher, not on Elan's level at least. "At least consider the possibility that Mierin wants to discuss what happened to her. You were close once, and many of the friends she made after your breakup are dead."

"You might be right. Still, it would give her an opening to come after me again."

"Forgive me, Lews. Is that so bad? She is remarkable in mind as well as body." These days, Elan had little interest in romance-truthfully, not much could hold his attention anymore-but he was certainly aware of Mierin's attractiveness, and for a time before the accident they'd had fascinating conversations.

"Maybe you should ask her to dinner, Elan Morin." Lews chuckled softly.

Maybe...no. "I'll take that into consideration." Unfortunately, his lack of enthusiasm was showing.

"Are you all right, Elan? I had heard that you were about to publish another book, but it's been delayed over and over."

"I've been having difficulty writing the conclusion, Lews. I'm a bit blocked, that's all." Just how did you finish a book titled Reality and the Absence of Meaning, anyhow? More importantly, why?

Lews shrugged. "If you're sure. Barid, Mierin, and I all enjoyed your first book."

"I confess my surprise. I don't know of anyone else who could say that."

"Well...it was rather dense."

"I'm extremely proud of you three. You're among the best students I've ever had. Perhaps the best."

"Coming from you, Elan, that's high praise. Thank you." Lews rose. "I hate to run off and leave you when you're obviously not feeling well, but I have students of my own these days."

"It has been good to see you, Lews. Keep honing those gaming skills, and perhaps one day we'll meet each other on the professional circuit."

Elan leaned back in his chair and watched Lews go. Elan had never cared for popularity, but he had once had it, if not to the level that Lews did now. There'd been talk that he might be First Among Servants one day; there was still talk of it despite his refusal to discuss the matter with the public. At the very least, he supposed it would fill the time. But then, he could do that with sha'rah. He looked around the gaming hall.

No one else was playing sha'rah-not really a surprise-but there were a pair of tcheran boards set up nearby, and at least half a dozen no'ri games. By chance, it seemed that there was nobody playing cards, though he was sure there had been a large game going when he and Lews began. A few more active gamers were engaged in some sort of contest that involved tossing a flying disc, and at the far side of the room there was a holographic simulation of combat with a large feathered beast.

And why not? There was no other kind of conflict to engage in. That was the price of prosperity. People built business empires, or rose in politics, but there was no prize beyond simple adulation, perhaps money or pleasure if you cared for those things. True, there remained mysteries to solve-Mierin's doomed experiment, the rumored discovery on Venus-but they were the sort of things that taxed the minds of the greatest geniuses. Everyone else heard about them on the news and wondered what they meant. And as often as not, they failed as Mierin's had. And what would it all amount to in the end? The Great Serpent ate its own tail. Everything they learned was doomed to be lost again, every achievement doomed to be forgotten.

"By the Light! What-?"

Elan rose from his seat. There was a milling about near the holographic beasts, and a lizard-scaled thing lifted its head above the crowd with a soundless roar. Then flames shot from its mouth, and the crowd shrieked. Elan smelled seared flesh.

He could walk away.

No, he found. He really couldn't.

It must be some malfunction of the holographic lasers. They weren't meant to be damaging, but in principle they could be. Could the flames have been misprogrammed somehow? Elan wove Air and shoved his way through the crowd with it.

The thing glared at him with hungry, bestial red eyes and opened its mouth. Elan leapt aside as it breathed fire. There was no scent, save that of burnt flesh from the wounded. Of course there wouldn't be. But how to fight an intangible monster?

Weaving the Power, Elan wrapped himself in shadow and stood up to face the dragon. He shut out the elated cries of "Aes Sedai!" as another burst of flame washed over him. The net around him soaked up the holographic fire as a sponge would water.

So he hurled the net at the thing. The dragon whipped its head around, roaring as if in fury or pain. Why had it been programmed so? No matter. The creature dissolved as the web sucked the energy from it, collapsing to motes, then nothing.

Then there were only the cries of pain. Elan offered his services with his mind only barely on the Healing. He was not bad at the basic form, though he was nothing special either. Some of the more seriously burned would need to be seen to by a Restorer. What interested him was the half-caught conversations going on around him.

"-never heard of a malfunction like that-"

"-heard the grid went down in Tzora the other day-"

"-volcano erupted up north-"

"-to believe this, but I heard some kind of creatures escaped from a lab, nobody could account for them-"

Elan had been hearing tales like this for almost three months now. They might well have been spreading for longer. Some sounded almost mundane, if improbable; others as bizarre as people trapped in their rooms by a bubble of folded space or a plague of two-headed flies. Of course, there were always some few who told or believed such tales, but not in the numbers Elan heard of now.

"-walking dead on Venus-"

Of course, some tales were still ludicrous. There were no dead on Venus to be walking. Then again, there were no tentacled monsters in any laboratory he'd ever heard of.

Why had all this begun happening now?

Perhaps, just perhaps, there was one more mystery still worth exploring.


	5. Intelligent Design

"I'm sorry," Ishar said absently. "I warned you that I am not well-liked by the Governance Council."

"No one else could have adequately supported me," his student insisted, "or would have, at least."

"That's why I agreed to do it," Ishar admitted. "I respect your ideas too much to have allowed you to go in there alone. But it was a doomed notion from the start. If anything, I made them more wary of you. I have been censured for inappropriate research thrice too many times."

"You would think they would have at least acknowledged the quality of it, the principle." Ishar tried not to be annoyed by the sulkiness in his student's voice. He had been sulky rather often himself. Only fools tried to believe that men and women were different about such things, though sometimes the details of the reaction might be.

"The idea of genetic alterations performed on animals, beyond some very rudimentary health enhancements, is too much for the Governance Council," Ishar pointed out. "Doubly absurd, when they awarded me a third name for making _sapient plants_ , but let that go for the moment. You proposed research into several different ways of genetically enhancing _human beings_. As if that were not enough, your preferred project involved redistributing the channelling genes to the general population. _What were you thinking?_ "

"I was thinking of the good of humanity," she muttered. "I suppose they weren't."

Ishar took a deep breath. "There is a basic truth of human nature that even I have bothered to learn. Call this society a utopia all you like. No privileged group likes to see its privilege come to an end. Not even the Servants of All, Saine."

"They dubbed me 'unsuited for research'," Saine spat. "After spending a lifetime grooming me for it!"

"They could have labeled you unfit for teaching as well, you know. Risk of 'spreading dangerous ideas'. They tried to do that to me, Saine, and only failed because I learned to grit my teeth and wait before promoting radical notions." Ishar tried to keep his tone even. Saine was methodical and-under most circumstances-patient, but her temper burned just as steadily as her intellect.

"What do I do now, Ishar?" If only he were better at reading people. In stories, those words would be both a sign of desperate unhappiness and an indication of her readiness to fall weeping into his arms. When was the last time he had been with a woman, anyway? Right, right. Thelaine Barasand. Seven-no, eight years ago. He'd made the mistake of asking whether she was feeling anxious for children-at three hundred forty-seven, she'd never borne any-and she'd stormed out of the room half-dressed. How was anyone supposed to know these things?

Wait, he was getting distracted again. "Saine, please keep in touch with me. I find your proposals fascinating, whether anyone on the Governance Council does or not. Suppose I suggest a new method of increasing crop yields; it can be complete folly. Then we will divert the resources to whichever of your ideas you prefer, and you will-completely unofficially-'assist' me."

Saine looked stunned. Well, technically his idea was utterly unethical, but it was for the good of humanity. What were ethics compared to that? "What happens when the agriculture project falls through?"

"Ninety percent of all crop yield projects fail these days, simply because we are approaching a theoretical maximum, Saine. There are nearly ten billion people on the planet; we have done almost all that the genetics of existing food plants can support without radical re-engineering and dependence on hydroponic factories. Not that I can get that through the Governance Council's thick skulls, but they understand the statistics at least. We will come up with some fool reason for the failure and no one will question it."

Saine's mouth had started to twitch while he was speaking, and suddenly there was a quiet "ahem" from over Ishar's shoulder. He turned, and found himself staring at a torso made of woven vines. Slightly annoyed, he took a step back and craned his neck. "Someshta."

Someshta frowned at him. "Maker, is that true?"

"What?" Someshta was the first of the-well, the first successful Nym, anyway. Ishar had done the majority of the design work a hundred and seven years ago. He still remembered Someshta emerging from the growth tank, wondering whether this one would be another gibbering thing made of swamp muck. Fortunately, Someshta remembered that moment with equal clarity-and with gratitude.

"Is it true that you are that close to the brink? The food supply is that precarious, even with our help?"

"Well, the population has very nearly stabilized," Ishar allowed. "But only within the last hundred and fifty years. If not for you, there would have been a crash instead. A greater safety margin would be desirable."

"They don't tell us this in school," Saine gasped.

Ishar turned a cynical eye on her. "Of course they don't. Who would dare tell the children that this is anything but a perfect era of wonders?"

Someshta had gone quiet, a thoughtful expression on his green face. "If all people could channel," he mused, "or if the general level of intelligence were higher, or even if you were merely more content to live in harmony with nature-"

Ishar grimaced. "Don't push it, Someshta. We have had this discussion before."

"If your nature were different," Someshta persisted, "then the danger would be less."

"Someshta-"

"Wait," Saine interjected. "Someshta, what are you saying?"

The Nym blinked, looking confused. "I am trying to tell you, Aes Sedai, that I support you. Many of the Nym will. Not all, but many."

"Well," Ishar said, stunned, "that changes everything."

Saine smiled. "Yes. Yes, it does." Her smile, at least, was beautiful.

Ishar returned it. "Now we just need a means of bringing in volunteers."


	6. Just Another Day in Paaren Disen

"...and now we have a word from Ilyena Dalisar who has apparently just returned from the negotiations with _Sindhol_."

The image atop Veraan Tower flickered, transforming to reveal Ilyena Sunhair's wearily smiling face. "It's been a rough month, certainly. I'm just glad we brought plenty of provisions."

"But the negotiations were successful?"

"After a fashion. I've been instructed to inform all comers that the Tower of Ghenjei is now off-limits. However, we have received permission to construct a pair of special gateway _ter'angreal_ that will allow limited access to the domains of the Aelfinn and the Eelfinn. At least for the moment, the remaining nations continue to deny us access to their territory. Personally, after a month of negotiating, I'm inclined to think it's just as well. Nothing is worth another day of that."

The newscaster chuckled politely. "And what do you have to say about rumors that you've just earned a third name?"

"Well, you know I can't discuss that in any official capacity. However, again, it's my personal opinion that anyone who can survive negotiating with the _Sindholi_ deserves one."

This time, the newscaster laughed out loud.

"Yeah, but _she_ doesn't look like she thought it was funny." Canella Tetchin shook her head. "I bet it was a nightmare."

Her twin shook his head. "Look at the corners of her mouth. I'm sure you're right about what it was like, but she still thinks it was a little bit funny."

"Say what you like, Oloran." Canella took a moment to check the city map. "You really ought to read more stories about the otherworlds."

"So which way back to the Hall?"

Canella sighed and pointed straight at the tallest tower on the skyline. "Thataway." It was no answer. The streets here must make sense to the locals, but if you were from a farm in the Rorn M'doi...

"You'd think they would warn incoming Silu Sedai about this sort of thing."

Canella smiled grimly. "It's part of the initiation ritual. Make it back to the Hall of Servants and you get promoted to Doann Sedai."

Oloran looked around. The streets were full of pedestrians, of course. "We could just ask someone. I don't guess they taught you any way of finding your way around with the Power, did they?"

"Nah. That's the sort of thing you can only do with saidin," Canella said wryly. It was all nonsense, of course. You couldn't sense direction with the Power, let alone follow city streets with it. Though maybe... She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "Behind the steering yoke. Don't try to push the jo-car, just guide it."

"Huh?"

"I bet I can trace the standing flows. The web extends all through the city, but I guarantee you it goes straight to the Hall."

"Well, yeah. So does line of sight."

Canella groaned. "I hope you never make it to Aes Sedai if you can't remember not to just extend your flows willy-nilly through buildings and everywhere. They'll follow the streets to avoid passing through anything important, except where they need to go into a building to be used. Now be quiet and let me concentrate."

Oloran thought about that and was silent. He might as well try too; he needed the practice. He fixed his mind on the image of a star. It burned hotter, hotter, shifting through the spectrum as it burned through its hydrogen. Helium, carbon, oxygen, silicon...the star went supernova, searing his mind clean, and collapsed into a black hole. Emptiness. In that emptiness, Oloran could feel the gravity-tug of saidin. He opened his eyes.

There were the standing flows, a network blanketing the city, making all kinds of common _ter'angreal_ useful to everyone. And of course, as Canella had said, they avoided passing through anything they might weaken over time. He tried tracing the lines of Spirit-like his twin, he was strongest in Spirit-back through the great web toward the Hall.

"I think we need to make a left at the next intersection," he suggested.

"Yeah, but which left?" Canella gave a significant glance at the six-pointed star ahead of them.

"Forward-left," Oloran said.

"Okay, right, I think that's it too."

"Look at all the chora trees," Oloran said with a smile. "I've never seen so many of them in one place."

"You get used to it." But Canella smiled too. Though was that because the choras were interesting, or because they were affecting her emotions? Sometimes that disturbed her just a bit. Of course, the effect was supposed to be mild. It wasn't stopping the fellow in the streith cloak from arguing with his girlfriend.

"Nice cloak," Oloran said with a chuckle. More women than men wore streith, just as more men than women wore fancloth, but it looked as if the fashion was changing in Paaren Disen. They'd seen three men in streith cloaks or robes yesterday, and a woman wearing a fancloth hat, of all things. The pair of women this morning with close-cropped hair and wearing fancloth suits in a masculine cut probably didn't count, though.

"She doesn't think so." Canella sounded baffled. "Surely that's not something worth arguing over."

"Well, if she doesn't like how it looks on him..."

"It's his business what he wears," Canella snapped.

"Whoa! Sorry, sister. I just meant she doesn't have to agree with him, that's all."

Canella scowled and looked around. "There are other people arguing too. What's the deal?" Another couple were arguing over the man supposedly cheating, which was probably enough for an argument in a whole park full of chora trees. But the businesspeople nearby were beginning to shout about the latest Tel Janin-Duram Laddel match, and a crowd was gathering around three Aes Sedai debating the nature of space-time.

Oloran tried to focus on the Oneness. "I don't know. This isn't supposed to happen. Surely not here, especially." He breathed deeply. "Wait, what's that smell, sister?"

She inhaled. "I don't know...it smells like chora scent, but not. It's as if it's been altered somehow. That doesn't make any sense. Just be quiet and let me concentrate!"

"Holy tsag." It made sense, all right. But who would have...? "Someone's altered the chora trees, Canella. The effects are being reversed." She ground her teeth, then opened her mouth to shout at him. "Just stop it and listen to me!"

"So don't yell at me if that's what you want!"

"I'm not yelling! Just try and think it through!"

"I can't concentrate with you shouting in my ear, Oloran! I can't...I can't...it can't be genetic restructuring. They were working right just a few minutes ago."

Oloran realized suddenly that his hands had curled into fists, and he was holding as much of the Power as he was able. "And it's getting worse. Maybe if we get inside?"

"Don't be an idiot! Someone has to stop this before there's a riot!" Canella seemed to notice his hands and balled her own into fists in response.

"How?" At least three fistfights had begun in the intersection, though so far they seemed isolated.

"Burn the choras! They're the problem!"

Oloran gaped. "That _will_ start a riot! I don't think anyone else has figured out what's wrong!"

"Just bloody do it before I start pummeling you, you idiot!" Canella raised a hand and flung a fireball at the nearest chora. Just as Oloran had feared, the act drew furious looks from everyone not already swinging fists.

"It's the trees!" he shouted at the bystanders, and concentrated hard, unleashing a thin flow of fire at another chora. He was only just able to wield enough of saidin, but he managed to set the tree aflame.

That drew the attention of the Aes Sedai physicists. Unfortunately, it seemed they'd been too absorbed in their argument to notice the altered chora scent. One of them raised a hand; Oloran threw himself out of the way of a ball of fire. At least it struck another tree. He lunged forward and grabbed the Aes Sedai by her collar. "Listen to me, you lunatic! The trees are malfunctioning. They're making us angrier!"

"That's absurd, student!" She clawed at his face, forcing him to let go to fight her off. "They aren't machines. They cannot 'malfunction'."

"Well, something is wrong with them!" Canella screamed. "Help me burn them before the fighting gets out of hand!"

The Aes Sedai's faces darkened. The pair Oloran hadn't tackled seemed to be embracing the Source, maybe linking.

Then a mass of fire filled the intersection. Superheated air seared Oloran's lungs, and the world went white...then black.


	7. Nightmarish

"Help me!"

It was a plea Nemene Damendar Boann heard every day. And every day she responded. That gave her the right to do as she pleased otherwise.

This one didn't look like he was going to be in any shape for her to enjoy for a while, though. He was a seared mass of second and third-degree burns, and from the sound of his wheezing his lungs were damaged. He would be all right, though. After all, she was Nemene Damendar Boann. At worst he might have some lingering scars.

The girl clinging to his hand was no pretty sight herself, but she was up and about. Maybe Nemene could extract the payment from her. "Let go, dear. You won't enjoy the backwash from this weave." She nodded, and Nemene realized that she could channel. A bit weaker than average for her age, but not insignificant by any means.

Nemene prepared a weave of Air, Water, Earth, and Spirit-no Fire in this; in fact, there were several gaps in the weave where one might expect Fire in a Healing web. She laid it delicately against the boy's skin and began to move it, quickly but with attention to detail, over the burnt surface. A thin mesh of connective tissue began to form adjacent to the few remaining healthy areas, spreading rapidly over the burns and preventing further fluid loss. The tissue would gradually become proper skin with further care, but now his lungs needed attention.

She laid her hand on his chest, maintaining the first weave, and Delved deeper. The alveoli of his lungs had taken some serious damage. Had his skin burns been even slighly less severe, she'd have done this first, but he was already suffering from hypovolemic shock, and his breathing, while labored, was just barely adequate.

Now she had to-

Something scuttled along the floor next to the wall.

Never mind that, she had to-

"Light, there are bugs coming out of him!"

Nemene looked up and around the trauma ward. Once the room had nearly always been empty or nearly so, but lately that had been changing. Roughly a dozen injured were on cots here, and-yes, there was a patient convulsing as arthropodal creatures poured from his orifices. Abruptly his chest ruptured, spraying blood as more "bugs" emerged from the new cavity. The creatures seemed determined to avoid the light, but apparently human insides were adequate protection; the other Restorers and a pair of orderlies struggled to keep them off the patients and themselves. Nonetheless there were so many of the things that it was plain that defeat was inevitable. Abruptly one of the orderlies also began to convulse, and more creatures began emerging from his mouth and ears as he crumpled to the ground.

She formed a simple web of Air touched with Fire and bellowed "Out! Leave them! Save the ones we can!" She scooped up her patient and his panicking sister in another web and dragged them toward the door. "We have to sterilize this room!" Another of the Restorers started to protest, and she clipped him on the head with Air. "Get him out of here!"

The girl was still wailing about the world not making any sense. Nemene gritted her teeth and ordered, "Link with me. Your brother too, if he's coherent enough."

"What?"

"We have to ensure that none of those things escape this building, or we'll have a major outbreak to contain. I'm going to kill them while I can." She filled her thoughts with the exact layout of the facility. Everyone uninfected seemed to be out. "Ring, now!" No, one of the junior Restorers-she thought the girl's name was Freyane-was still inside. There would be enough of an investigation as it was. "Where's Freyane?"

"Those things got her," shouted Halifas. "I saw her go down!"

Nemene felt Power and emotions fill her. The Restorers were stressed but not to the point of panic, which helped the girl focus. Her brother was sufficiently delirious he was barely able to join the link; for the sake of her own focus she tried to lend him a little coherence. Then she unleashed a massive and intricate flow of Fire, weaving it around every entrance to the trauma center down to the size of an air vent.

"I'm sorry," she told the rest of her team. "There was nothing we could do for the infested." For the moment, she did feel sorry-the sorrow of the rest of the ring-and it threatened to make her ill. She let the ring dissolve. As she did so, she felt an oddity from the boy.

Nemene Delved him again and found a fading spark of life. With a glare back at the facility, she wove basic Healing once more and settled it over him. "We have to get the patients to another center as quickly as possible." She opened a gateway to the Traveling room of Sessikan Intensive Health. "Get everyone through. No one else is dying today." As it was, there was already too much risk that an investigation would turn up her indiscretions.

*****

This wasn't supposed to happen anymore.

Canella sat at her twin's bedside holding his hand. Words like "brain damage" and "may or may not awaken" flickered through her thoughts.

"You were supposed to get better," she confided, "but reality is broken. There aren't supposed to be parasite bugs and plants aren't supposed to malfunction and you're supposed to be awake and learning the Power. I'm sorry, Oloran, I'm sorry. It's all my fault."

She'd felt his thoughts. She'd felt his confusion as he faded. The others hadn't felt it so strongly, but they weren't twins, were they? The link was too strong with them.

"We had a story we were supposed to follow and we broke it. I just wish I knew what it was."

Oloran didn't answer. Not with words. But eventually, Canella heard him all the same.


	8. Well of the World's End

Mierin sat in her room alone, thinking.

It was comfortable here, psychologically as well as physically. She'd kept this same, fairly small room, since she'd gained her research position at the Collam Daan. The bed and chairs were cushioned to her liking, and all the furniture was colored as she preferred it-white with the occasional accent of black or silver. Pictures of her family lined the wall near the exit; over her bed was a lifesize one of Lews Therin. Sometimes that one was painful. Sometimes she...soothed herself to sleep by it. Right now it was just a reminder. The instruments she used most frequently in her work were on a shelf next to her computer screen. Among them sat a Well, which she'd been making more use of lately in her stedding project. The Well seemed to be empty. Perhaps it was simply broken. Or...

"Lews. Please answer, Lews. I really need to talk to you. It's important." But for the fourth time today, the callbox sat silently in her palm. She was getting nowhere with this. Lews deserved the chance to investigate, and she wanted to spend time with him even apart from that. But if he wasn't interested, a week was more than long enough to waste. Mierin shifted the weaves. "Elan, I have a matter you may be interested in. It relates to the basic substance of the One Power."

Almost immediately Elan's voice answered her. "Mierin! It's been some time. I hope that you're well. Lews Therin tells me you've been trying to get in touch with him."

"To the Can Breat with Lews Therin! I wanted to give him first crack at helping me solve this, but if he won't answer my calls, I'm happy to share the credit with you."

Elan caught her mood. He was good at that. He gave a brief, self-deprecating chuckle, and said, "I wasn't aware that you needed help on that kind of problem, other than someone to channel saidin for you, but I'm glad to offer any assistance I can."

"As it happens," Mierin muttered, "I've already had someone check for saidin. I wish the problem were that simple."

"Oh, Mierin." Elan's tone was wry. "What would you do in a world with only simple problems?"

"You've heard the rumors, I suspect. Anomalous incidents that seem to break the laws of reality itself, generally destructive in nature."

"I've been involved in one myself," Elan sighed. "I've been trying to map out the locations for them, but they seem to have no center. I suppose the center could be some extra-spatial location-a vacuole, perhaps."

Mierin pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Perhaps a vacuole. Possibly. I have my doubts. But I need to explain. Last week..."

_The storm sprang up out of nowhere in defiance of the weather-regulating web. Mierin seemed to be merely on the fringes of it, but she was quickly soaked. Lightning surged and thunder cracked, with bolts originating from the buildings far more often than the cloudless sky. More than once she saw a bolt shoot out of a lightning rod, each time to strike at some unfortunate trying to get out of the rain._

_Mierin suspected someone must be tampering with the regulatory_ ter'angreal _. Storms simply didn't happen at random in the cities, especially not storms like this one. She decided to sap its energy at the source. Preparing a complex web of Spirit, Water, and Air, she drew on her research_ angreal _and flung the web as wide as she could. The storm imploded on itself, vanishing almost at once, as her conduit siphoned the energy out of it and into her Well._

"But it wasn't the One Power that was making the storm," Mierin finished. "Not only did a search find no one tampering with the regulatory web, my Well turned out to be empty. Only...it wasn't. Not really."

"How so?"

"There's no saidar in it. Nor is it full of saidin, my brother says. I thought for a while I'd misaligned the web and damaged it somehow, so I started running some tests. The Well is intact, and Higgs-Gibson field interactions tell me that it's full. Of something."

"Something? Wasn't it your Higgs-Gibson field experiments that found the source of power you and Beidomon were trying to tap into?" Elan's voice held concern.

"Yes. Yes, it was. Elan, I thought I knew all the damage I'd done. But now these...anomalies are happening, and they've got an energy signature that matches the power beyond the Bore. What if I've...how do I even put it? Broken the universe? How do I fix it? Can it even be fixed?"

There was a long pause. "In my experience, Mierin, whatever can be done can be undone. Tell me, Mierin, do I understand correctly that the Bore isn't actually at the Collam Daan?"

"The Bore is...well, everywhere and nowhere, Elan. It's closest to our space-time at Kemali, but we couldn't drill it there, in the middle of a resort town. We opened a microscopic gateway from inside the Sharom to a mile underneath the bedrock there, then set up containment fields at both ends."

"Did you know there's anomalous volcanic activity at Kemali? It's being chalked up to another of those bizarre events, but it's quite persistent."

Mierin stared. "Kemali's geologically inert. It has been for millennia at least."

"Not any more, Mierin."

"We have to go there. Do you think you can talk to Lews? I'll see if I can reach Barid. He was next on my list after the two of you. If the Bore is still open, if it's leaking some kind of dangerous energies, I have to close it. It's my responsibility, Elan. I'll try alone if I have to."

"I...I will try to help you, Mierin. And yes, I'll speak to Lews Therin. First, though, is there any chance I could examine your Well? If the energy is inherently dangerous, then by all means we need to close the Bore at once. But perhaps it's merely uncontrolled. The One Power would do as much if you simply let random flows loose."

Mierin sighed in relief. "I was hoping you'd ask that, Elan. Yes, we'll try to tap and study the Well together."


	9. World-Wide Webs

Duram Laddel Cham reached out for a stone, studied the board again, and hesitated. Lillen had somehow managed to surround a good quarter of his stones. Well, they _had_ been playing this game for over a day, on and off. The youngster wasn't a bad player, by any means, but she was far too defensive. He'd tried playing tcheran with her too, and there as well she had wasted a good hour establishing her defenses before making an attack. Perhaps he would try sha'rah with her next time. She claimed never to have played the game, but a solid defense was even more critical in it than in the other two. Even if that fellow Elan said otherwise.

Finally he placed a stone that would, hopefully, disrupt her attack. She was no master-no one was a master this young-but she was good, after a fashion. Very subtle.

"I'm a little surprised you came to me, Lillen," he said. "You know who I am, don't you?"

"I know you're the best advocate on the planet," Lillen responded, "and I need the best." She leaned over the board, pretending to poke at the pieces with her fingers. It was a deception, he'd found. Lillen could remember the arrangement of an entire board three days later, if she took a moment to fix it in her mind. There was no need for her to study what he had done. More than likely she already had a countermove.

"Lillen," he sighed, "your crimes are serious, but you have committed no violent acts. You are not a murderer or a rapist. You have assaulted no one. Your alleged thefts consist almost entirely of electronic blips in the computer network. The worst you can expect is to be bound, and you would probably be released on good behavior within a decade. Unless there's something else you don't want me to know."

Lillen ran a cool gaze over him, sizing him up. "All right," she said, "you want a reason? Here's my reason: I'm guilty. I admit it to you freely."

Duram blinked. He hadn't expected that at all. "I'm not certain what you hope to gain from such an admission. I maintain a high ethical standard in my work, Lillen. I didn't get to be First Among Servants for thirty years by lying about guilty clients." He'd tired of it, finally, and declined to stand for a fourth term, but he knew that if he ever asked for the position, the ajah would fall all over themselves to put him back in power. It was too much, though. He'd been four hundred seventy-eight when he stepped down, but he'd felt over seven hundred. The two years that had passed had restored some of his energy, but far from all.

"Let me explain, Duram Sedai," she said respectfully, and he lifted an eyebrow at her. Lillen didn't show respect casually. "The regulations on trading are literally older than-no offense-you are. They've remained essentially unchanged for two millennia. They don't take into account changes in technology. They don't take into account the huge age gap between the main body of the population and Aes Sedai and Ogier, either. Yes, I had a stake in several of the companies I was recommending. I hold stock in multiple conglomerates, and I'm not quite two hundred years old, Duram. I knew inside information because I grew up with the heads of a dozen different corporations and have met more in my line of work. You're well over twice my age. How did you manage to divest yourself of conflicting business interests when you sat in the HIgh Seat?"

"With immense effort," Duram said slowly. "As it was, I ended up having to transfer all but a tiny handful of my money to holding companies, and at that I'm not sure I couldn't have been challenged and impeached if I'd given enough people reason to."

"You were a popular leader, Duram Sedai, and your policies were extremely sound. But what if you'd made a misstep? What if you'd slipped up on that agricultural crisis in the Rorn M'doi? Millions of people could have starved, and not from any wrongdoing on your part. Or the cold war with Sindhol? Or if the terraforming on Mars had gone sour? They didn't call you the Netweaver for nothing, Duram, but every net has weak spots."

Sometime during all that she'd started removing his stones from the board, and now it looked like she might have a third of what remained in her sights. How did she do it? "I think I see where you're going with this, Lillen, and it's a valid argument. I'm not sure how it will play with the courts, though. Being able to channel gives us immense power and prestige, and contrary to what you might see on the surface, there are elements of society that consider it too much. I understand the difficulties you're pointing out. I don't think we should have to step lightly in our dealings to keep from accumulating 'too much power', or that we should have to pretend we don't know things we know. But so far, no one's proposed a workable alternative. If anything, there's been a stable alliance of ajah for most of a century that proposes that, after a normal human lifespan, we should have to divest ourselves of most of our property and resign from political office outside the Hall of the Servants." He placed a stone near the center of the board. It was almost purely a distraction, but if she ignored it long enough he could use it to surround half her pieces.

Lillen made a disgusted face. "That's the most despicable load of choss I've ever heard of! We _deserve_ to-! I mean, we have the experience, the knowledge, and the power to run a great deal more of society than we do, and do it better than ordinary people."

Duram tapped his fingers on the desk. "You are _not_ helping your case with me, Ms. Moiral. It's your move, by the way."

She placed a stone, looking distracted. "I'm sorry for my outburst, Duram Sedai. I think my point is valid, all the same. Democracy assumes that people are roughly equal in their capabilities; otherwise we couldn't give their input equal validity. There's a reason we don't allow children and the mentally-disabled to vote, after all. The same is true, in reverse, for us. We can do better for ordinary humans than they can for themselves." She was falling for his diversion on the no'ri board. A shame.

"If you want me to make that argument before the court, Lillen, I will, mostly because I'm certain it will lose you the case. Even if I grant everything you've said, it still doesn't guarantee us moral superiority, Ms. Moiral. We may make fewer mistakes, but we can do all the more wrong on purpose."

The younger Aes Sedai shook her head. "I suppose I see where you're going, Duram Sedai. I wish you'd take me seriously about the underlying problem, though, even if you don't trust me. I'm not just proposing a defense. This is the whole reason I did what I did I want to change society. I want to make a difference." She glanced down at the board. "Bajad drovja! Did I do that?"

"I'm afraid so," Duram said with a sigh. "And you were doing so well. I would rather not take your case, Lillen Sedai, but if you can find another advocate I will serve in a consulting role. Your arguments do have some merit, and it would be worthwhile to have them examined in a public forum. I'm just not certain you're the right person to bring it to popular attention. And you've indicated to me that you are, at least, technically guilty of the crimes you're accused of."

"I understand," Lillen said disappointedly. "I'll let you know if I find someone. Oh, and I concede the game. I've messed this one up somewhere." She had, at that. Her last stone was badly misplaced, leaving her vulnerable.

She rose from her chair. Duram did the same and offered her his hand to shake; she took it reluctantly. "I wish you luck in your trial, Lillen, I really do. Especially if you're sincere in your desire for positive social change. And I hope to talk with you again in the future. You're young, Lillen, and you sound idealistic, which is a good thing. You simply have to learn to use the proper means."

She smiled faintly at him. "I'll be back."

*****

Ared Mosinel touched a thread to the callbox. "Yes, Lillen?"

"I'm transmitting the recording now. He said the things you hoped he would say. He sees merit in my opinions, he won't take my case because he believes I'm guilty, _and_ if he did take the case he'd make an argument he's sure will lose."

Ared smiled. "Good, good. I appreciate your efforts, Lillen. I'll send you the credits in just a moment. Might I interest you in something more personal?" He glanced at the view-wall, which showed his currently unprogrammed servants idling in the recovery hall. Lillen liked men with olive complexions and broad shoulders. Getting her a witty conversationalist would be more difficult, but sufficient programming could build up a database.

"Thanks but no thanks, sir. I can't afford to be caught with something like that at the moment. May I ask what you're planning?"

"You may ask," Ared chuckled. If she half-lived up to her reputation, Lillen Moiral either already knew or at least could work it out in a few moments.

"I should go," she said, and terminated the connection. He didn't try to re-establish it; she would have her reasons. Someone too close, most likely. Instead he turned to his computer and began preparing a message for Mierin Eronaile. She had a great deal of public sympathy at the moment.

It was time to disrupt that.

*****

"He has the information, Vairan," Lillen's voice said.

Vairan son of Goran son of Tonath smiled. "Good. Now that I know he's moving, we can begin to draw him out. We know he's planning to disrupt the election somehow. I suspect he wants to discredit top candidates, prepare the way for someone under his thumb."

"I don't think Duram wants the High Seat again," Lillen opined. "He seems...tired."

"Our hidden player may not know that," said Vairan. "Or he may believe that Duram will take the office if he thinks it could be compromised otherwise. Duram will probably see what's happening once the campaigning actually begins and key players start suffering scandals. He is clever that way."

"He fell for my little distraction with the no'ri board," Lillen said. "Maybe he's not as clever as his reputation would have it."

"Always possible," Vairan acknowledged. Humans were rarely as clever as they thought. Even Aes Sedai. "In any case, we'll know who our secret keeper is in a few months. There may be an even bigger scandal when he's captured, but better to spray the weeds than let them grow."

"Thank you, Vairan son of Goran son of Tonath. Light shine on you."

Vairan put the callbox away and stepped back into the stedding, thumbing idly at his earring. Most Ogier looked at him askance for having one, but not his wife. She understood. Some things needed to change. A few even needed to change quickly. The first was, it was time to drag the Aes Sedai from power while there was still a world to repair.

For that, Vairan would be as hasty as he needed to be.

*****

Lillen powered up the callbox one more time. "You wanted the best distraction money can buy. You've got it, as long as you can hold out till the interim election."

"Good work, little sister," said Nemene.


	10. Good Sports

Tel Janin ignored the cheering masses. They meant nothing. Stones Falling Down the Mountain met his Unfolding the Fan. He took a step backward, but only a step, and he smiled. "I would not have thought an old man like you had such aggression in him."

Duram Laddel chuckled as he sprang away. The crowd meant more to him than to his opponent; he fell into something like Cat Crosses the Courtyard as he circled. More fool he. "Why not, Tel? What have I got to lose?" His laughter rang across the arena, mingling with the chanting: "Tel, Tel, Tel, Tel!"

Tel wondered what it was like to be in Duram's position as he swirled through Leaf On the Breeze, holding off the older fellow's Three-Pronged Lightning. He had been champion here for a good thirty-five years, but Duram had been champion for _sixty_ , until an ordinary citizen had taken the title from him. Then Duram had left the sport to focus on politics. For a full century, Swords had been an occasional pastime, indulged enough to stay barely in practice. The years must have done more than taken his edge off, but it seemed that a blademaster of Duram's skill did not forget so easily as one might think.

Of course, there was no way he was going to beat Tel Janin. "Tel, Tel, Tel, Tel!" The two had met in a couple of exhibition matches since the older man retired from being First Among Servants, and Tel had defeated him each time, though not without a good workout first. "Tel, Tel, Tel, Tel!" Duram lunged forward, Hummingbird Kisses the Honeyrose, and Tel grunted as he stepped aside with Cat on Hot Sand. Maybe it was his stocky build, but somehow no one ever seemed to expect Tel to dodge. "Tel, Tel, Tel, Tel!"

This was more than an exhibition match. Duram had worked his way through the lower ranks over the past year, defeating them with something resembling his old flair. The man's preference for the complex extended even to swordfighting. He could certainly execute a direct attack when he chose, but he always seemed to do it with an eye for the dramatic. Maybe that had made him a good lawyer and politician, and no doubt it had made him popular in the arena. It could not make him a winner, however.

Now he had challenged Tel Janin. The fellow almost seemed to regard the match as a joke-not a sport, merely a game. Duram laughed as he performed Heron Spreads Its Wings. "Tel Janin, can you not enjoy yourself a little?" Perhaps this was part of his bucket list. Duram was clearly not on his last legs, but his once-black hair had gone stark white on the sides. "They're cheering for you."

"I don't do it for the adulation, Duram Laddel." Sensing the moment, he countered not with a defense, but with KIngfisher Takes a Silverback. "I don't do it for the fans. I do it for myself."

Duram went so far as to roll his eyes as he swiftly aborted into The Grapevine Twines. "Then laugh because you're having fun, man!"

Of course he was having fun. Did he have to cackle like a hyena to let everyone know that? He could feel his muscles starting to burn. He could feel the trickle of sweat starting to run down his temple. Tel brought his sword up, breaking away from Duram's spiral motion.

And he smiled.

"All right, Tel. I take it back! That looks horrifying on you," Duram chuckled.

Tel let his smile grow wider, showing perfect white teeth. He attacked. The Lion Springs. Boar Rushes Down the Mountain. The Viper Flicks Its Tongue. Moon Rises Over Water. Duram countered each blow, but each forced his sword further away from where it needed to be. River Undercuts the Bank left him with no choice but to lean much too far back, and Duram nearly fell. In that moment, Tel Janin decided to defeat the fellow with his own whimsy. While Duram teetered there on the brink of toppling over backwards, Tel assumed Heron Wading in the Rushes-looking all the more absurd, given how Duram virtually towered over him-and struck before Duram could recover. His bundled rods punctured the outer surface of Duram's protective chestgear and finished knocking the fellow over.

Even Tel Janin knew he had to milk the crowd a little. He spread his arms and basked in the swell of applause, turning slowly. When he faced Duram again, he leaned down and offered him a hand. "Good match, 'old man'."

Duram accepted the assistance gladly, getting up with the faintest hint of stiffness, but just as much good humor as before. "Indeed. Have you ever in your life used that form, Tel? Even in practice?"

"Not my style," Tel said with a faint grimace. "Leaves you wide open."

"No," said Duram, "but it was funny. The crowd loved it."

"Good for them. Did you challenge me just to get me to act the fool?"

"I challenged you to _win_ ," Duram said, surprisingly. "And I'll do it again after the requisite period. Truthfully, I thought I'd make you break form. But you do need to lighten up a bit."

Tel nodded respectfully. There was more to Duram than he'd realized, more fool he. "Well, then, you know it doesn't work."

"I know," Duram said, making a polite series of bows to the audience. "I'll keep it in mind next time."

"Do that," Tel said, and cast his gaze upward towards the crowd. "Do I have a challenger?" he bellowed. Usually there would be no answer, but it was polite-a way of letting ambitious challengers from other cities avoid the bureaucratic protocols of the sporting world.

"Yes!" came a shout from the higher tiers. Well, that wasn't what he'd expected. Then he saw who was making his way down, and sighed. "You face Barid Bel Medar! Prepare to defend yourself!"

"He thinks a great deal of himself," Duram muttered in Tel's ear. "But he is good."

Barid Medar had finally earned a third name just a few months ago, after publishing an insightful and best-selling treatise on the nature of leadership in a post-crisis world. Yet again, he'd been beaten out by Lews Therin, who'd been elected to hold the Fifth Rod of Dominion at the polls two weeks before. Getting elected to high office generally earned you a third name, unless you bungled immediately, though in truth most successful candidates already had one; Lews had been the exception in that regard. The newsfeeds were eating up the good-natured rivalry between the two famous men, and of course the rag services were hinting that it hadn't caused any worse trouble because they were secretly sharing a bed. Tel didn't concern himself with such things, though he suspected their egos would never allow that to work.

"Not alone!" came a cry from the opposite end of the arena. "Lews Therin Telamon challenges you as well!"

This time it was Duram's turn to sigh. "Two on two, it seems. Well, I guess these old bones will have to hold out a little longer." He quirked a half-smile; it seemed he wasn't completely serious. But he did grunt a little and flex his joints.

All this would only count as an exhibition match, of course, but it would build the younger mens' already-inflated reputations. If they chose to go for the championship, this match would boost their ratings with the public, and they would be ranked higher regarding how many opponents they had to defeat first. Tel had the suspicion that if they somehow both won, they'd turn on each other-all in good sport, of course. Had they even planned this out between them, or had Lews sprung it on his friend?

Lews and Barid came leaping over the dividing wall simultaneously, and approached from opposite ends of the field, bowing once to each of their opponents. At least they were being polite. "Did you know anything about this?" Tel muttered to Duram.

Duram shook his head fractionally. "Not a bit," he said as quietly as possible. "And they're both courting my grandniece Ilyena. I would have thought she'd have said something even if neither of them did."

The younger pair began to circle them, both in Cat Crosses the Courtyard. Tel took a deep breath. Well, there was no question of one thing-it was going to be fun.


	11. Hours Only Lonely

"You realize the improbability of your story, I presume."

"I realize it, Kamarile Sedai. It's true all the same. The Venusian terraforming station was overrun by walking dead men. No, I don't know where they came from or what reanimated them."

Eval adjusted his position on the couch, trying to conceal his reaction to her. She'd done her best to dress unattractively, but there was only so much one could do while still looking professional.

"And you hold to the story as well, Letan?"

Letan seemed visibly nervous, tugging at her collar. "It's the truth. I can't promise they'll be there if we go back. I can't promise they won't, either. We need to send an automated device to get a better look at the place before we resume the mission. Or give it up, I suppose, if there are still monsters swarming the surface."

"I'm sure that suggestion has already occurred to the Rodholders." Kamarile consulted her notes. "Neither of you are showing any signs of abnormal stress trauma. Eval, we will have to keep an eye on you because of your past episodes of violence. You're not a suspect, but your problems could be exacerbated by this incident."

Eval spoke up. "We're sure Detosh is all right, aren't we?"

"To the best of my knowledge, he is. The bite was infected, but only in a fairly ordinary manner. You don't have to fear he'll vomit blood and rise from the dead." She checked her files quickly; yes, that was what the medical report said. Though it was odd that normal Earth bacteria would be found on Venus.

Letan uncrossed and recrossed her legs. Why was she fidgeting so much? Wait. Kamarile reached up and fiddled with a button on her suit. Eval, of course, pretended so transparently not to stare that he might as well have goosed her. Letan...blushed faintly and looked away. So that was how it was. Well, it might do Eval some good to have a friendship with a woman he couldn't seduce.

"I intend to keep a close watch on you both. I won't violate your privacy, but you should remember that I'm here to listen to any difficulties you may have in the future." Eval quirked a faint smile. "Try not to waste my time, please." Letan managed to look simultaneously dejected and relieved. No doubt she knew that Kamarile had no interest in a sexual relationship of any kind.

Kamarile flipped up her viewscreen by way of dismissal. She had several minutes before her next client, and she intended to make use of them. Eval and Letan glanced at each other, mutually shrugged, and told her good evening.

The new program "A. M." had sent her certainly had its points. As an accurate depiction of Compulsion, it failed rather dramatically, but flows were difficult to record on any medium, and in any case, the scenario worked better psychologically than an Aes Sedai staring at someone and forming a web on their brain. There was the question of where A. M. had gotten his actors, of course, but there was no evidence of anything untoward on the video. It was a harmless indulgence, one that would likely lose its appeal over the course of a few months. And if it didn't, well, Kamarile knew how to discipline herself.

*****

"Whew," Letan muttered. "I have to admit, that just isn't fair. At least we didn't run into Mierin Eronaile coming in for trauma counseling on our way out."

"How is that an 'at least we didn't'?" Eval asked. "I wouldn't have minded."

"We don't stand any more chance with her than with Kamarile Sedai," Letan pointed out. "She's basically Lews-Therin-sexual."

"So we go out on the town and take out our fantasies on whoever we meet at the bar," Eval suggested. "Or failing that, we retire to our respective beds and spin the Mirror of Mists in the air above us."

"You have a twisted and disturbing perspective on dates, Eval." Letan shook her head in mock disapproval.

"Is that an agreement to be my wingman?"

"No," Letan said, "but I'll let you be mine."

"You're on."

*****

"Kamarile," the receptionist program said. "Next client in two minutes."

Kamarile sighed regretfully and fastened her pants. She could have used a little longer. "Who's the next client again?"

"Elan Morin Tedronai."

"Really? Elan? I'd forgotten entirely...it's been years."

"Null input," said the receptionist unhelpfully.

A chime rang out just before Elan strolled casually into the office. He took a moment to lean over and inhale the scent of some fresh flowers she'd left on her desk before sitting down on the couch.

"That's a rather strong scent," Elan observed.

"They're engineered for it," Kamarile informed him. "It's one of Ishar's lesser triumphs, but I find them quite nice."

"Yes, I agree," Elan said mildly. Curious...Elan never commented on flowers and the like.

"Are you feeling all right, Elan?" There was always the danger of a relapse, even hundreds of years later, when you went through what Elan had. Every so often, something would set the man off and he'd revert to obsessing about death.

"I'm feeling well, actually, Kamarile. That's what I came here to discuss."

"Elan, I don't think it would be wise to simply break off treatment sessions. I know you need them quite infrequently these days, but you remember your sister's accident." The computer controls on her jo-car had failed, and for weeks she'd been on the verge of death before finally pulling through. Eventually, Restorers had even managed to get rid of the tremors nerve damage had caused in her arms. In the meanwhile, however, Elan had gone into another suicidal episode.

"You don't understand, Kamarile." Elan leaned forward on the couch. "I know I will probably always need occasional counseling. But I've found a mystery worth solving, I think. I expect it will keep my attention for the foreseeable future. I came to let you know that, for the moment, I have a very good reason to live...and to let you in on it."

*****

Joar turned to face the music with a sigh.

"I know this has been a struggle for you all," he said. His bandmates watched him impassively. "Aside from the memorial concert-which I admit as an obvious fluke-we've been performing to smaller and smaller crowds for the last five years. I don't know what I've been doing differently. I don't know how I've lost my touch. But I take responsibility. If anyone wants to stay and work with me, feel free to do so. If not, I wish you the best of luck."

Irridel, his percussionist, nodded. "I wish you the same, Joar. I hate to say it, but I feel as if I've given up enough of my life to this band. I like all you people well enough, and I hope to stay in touch, but, well...look, I can't channel. Ten years is nothing to you, but it's a good bit of my life. I need to figure out what to do with what's left." Joar tried to offer him a friendly handshake, but Irridel clasped him in a warm hug instead, then offered the same to each of the rest in turn.

His balfonist and backup vocalist, Xaradu, gave a half-hearted shrug. "To be honest, I don't know what else to do right now. If you don't mind, I'll stay on as long as there's a band to be on." She gave Irridel another, briefer hug, and went to stand by Joar. "There may come a time when I concede that it's over. Not yet."

"I think it'd be different," said his bass vocalist and guitarist, Godan, "if we were more famous. I'd really prefer to stay. But my mother wants me married, and for that I have to return to Stedding Tsofu. If I can, and you hold the band together, maybe I'll be back." He reached down and patted Joar on the shoulder.

Nen, who played the corea and the flute, was the last to speak up. "If you'll take my advice, Joar...I wonder if the culture isn't leaving us behind. Look, for the last couple of hundred years there's been a trend toward abstract, intellectual music. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just a style, but before all these 'sound sculptures', people used to listen to music that excited their passions. Maybe we ought to get out in front and try doing that again."

Joar hesitated. "I...well, Nen, I've been part of that trend, you know. Are you sure I'm even capable of playing the kind of music you're thinking of?"

Nen nodded vigorously. "You bet you are, Joar! I've listened to everything you've done. You're a musical genius, whether the world acknowledges it any more or not. You fell in line with what was being offered at the time, and I don't blame you for doing it, but maybe that's your problem. Maybe you've been stuck into a style that just doesn't fit you. Besides," he added with a grin, "I've read that a lot of the time, musicians like that get by on looking good, like us."

"So we just look good, is that it?" Joar pretended offense.

Xaradu winked at him. "Not 'just', but you do. "

Joar looked around. "All right, then. Thanks to both of you for staying, and good luck to Godan and Irridel. I'm sure you'll find what you're looking for elsewhere. With that taken care of, we need a couple more musicians. I'll try and write up something different, and we'll see where it takes us."

"To the music," Godan said amiably, and the rest chimed in after him. "To the music."

*****

"Lews."

"Mierin." It was the first time he'd been in a room with her in years. It seemed that for once, Lews Therin had no idea what to say. "I'm sorry for not answering your calls. I didn't realize-"

"That it was actually important? Yes, Lews, a renowned physicist is your delusional stalker and fangirl. I actually thought about not bringing you in on this after all." She watched the sheepish look grow on his face.

"So why did you?"

"Because you really are one of my few intellectual peers. Because I can trust you to do the right thing where the world is concerned, even if you are an ass to your girlfriend. And because, in spite of everything, I really do love you."

Lews frowned thoughtfully. Well, he had better think on that. She wasn't going to let him go so easily this time. She hadn't gone to all this trouble to get his attention again just to have him tell her she was a power-crazed stalker for a second time. She picked up her mug of coffee and took a sip. Unfortunately, Elan seemed to think everyone liked their milk to have a little coffee in it; she set the mug down with a grunt of disgust.

Elan strode back into the room at that moment, chatting with Barid. "...and now I think it's time we got this little coffee hour going...what, Mierin?" Mierin glared at the mug, then back at him. "Oh. Well, there's another pot now if you want something different. The object of discussion today is this." He set the little gold-inscribed cylinder down on the table. "Mierin filled this well by draining a storm that she believed to have been created with the One Power. Yet it seems, on first examination, to still be empty. We now believe it may be full of the same force she and Beidomon tried to tap at the Sharom, and that the storm was caused by its uncontrolled radiation from the Bore."

Barid recoiled from the well. "Shouldn't we simply destroy that? Or at least lock it away? Whatever it was you tried to tap into, Mierin, it destroyed most of the Collam Daan."

"I'm aware of that," she said icily. "More aware than you will ever be. Unfortunately, we need to study it to prevent more disasters from taking place. Once we understand what it is, we can properly seal the Bore and have done with it."

Elan pointed out, "We have reason to think that multiple recent apparent violations of natural law are the result of uncontrolled Bore radiation. I have files on incidents ranging from a reversal of the normal effects of chora trees to a collapse of the grid lines in Tzora, leading to widespread outages, to the transformation of one unfortunate man into a puddle of inanimate water."

Mierin supposed that if he didn't want to bring up the holographic dragon attack, it wasn't her place to raise the issue. "I started all this. It's my job to finish it. Elan thinks there may still be a way to harness the energy, but if you ask me, it's not workable at this time. Maybe in a century we'll be advanced enough to try again."

"I can't imagine why the Creator would make such a force if not for us to use in some way," Elan argued.

Mierin looked to Barid and Lews, rather than answering. "You all know my opinion on the idea of a Creator. But even if there is one, and even if he did mean for us to use it, we're just not ready yet."

"I can't believe we're the only ones you thought of inviting to this little social," Barid questioned, sipping his coffee.

"We have a number of other candidates," Mierin said, "and we may still be contacting some of them. Ishar Morrad Chuain was our next pick, but he'd be working out of his field. Also, I'm a little concerned about his transhumanist leanings. He originally supported the Bore project, and he might be too myopic to help us close it now."

"I thought you were transhumanist yourself, Mierin." Barid's response was probably meant to be some kind of counter.

"I am. But responsibly. The Bore is not a viable source of power at this time. I'm not opposed to keeping some of the energy around to study, especially if it helps us seal the puncture back up, but that's all."

"I've spoken to Kamarile," Elan brought up, "but so far she knows only that I'm working on the mystery of the anomalies. If the rest of you approve, I'll fill her in the rest of the way, but I don't know that she'll want to get involved. It's even further out of her line of work than Ishar's."

Lews swirled his coffee, looking troubled. "Why not bring this up to the Collam Daan? Or better yet, to the Hall of the Servants?"

"The Hall is in a transitional state," Elan said. "They chose Rexam Wol as an interim First Servant to even out the power vacuum left by Duram's departure. I'm concerned that Rexam would be very out of his league in dealing with the kind of crisis this could turn into, and I'd rather not provoke a vote of no confidence unless a crisis actually has arisen."

"You do realize that people have died already." Lews took a swallow of coffee.

"People die," Elan said. "I hope that doesn't sound callous, but the numbers at present are barely above the background count. Consider what may happen if it suddenly worsens while the Hall of Servants is in a state of disarray. Yes, if we cannot solve it ourselves, we should get help. But why make matters worse if it isn't necessary?"

Lews made a face; Mierin wasn't sure whether it was for the uncomfortable moral situation or the coffee. He had some self-righteous tendencies, but overall he was a pragmatic man. She admired that in him.

Just as he seemed about to say something, the door chimed. "Are you expecting someone else, Elan?" Barid looked uneasy. "I thought it was to be the four of us for now."

"No one," Elan said quietly. "But if it's who I suspect it is, I trust him. Even with this."

Barid shot a blank look at Mierin, who offered one back. Lews looked just as baffled. Elan gave them a faint smile and opened the door. The man standing in the hall had faintly sallow skin, glossy black hair, and a bit of a tilt to his eyes. Yet in many ways his facial structure resembled Elan's. Certainly he had more cheer in his smile than she'd ever seen Elan have. He seemed about the same age as the rest of them, perhaps a decade or two younger; it was hard to say except that he wore a fashionable fancloth cloak, cut just so.

At the sight of him, Elan...brightened. It was astonishing to see her former teacher smile like that. "Mael," he said, and gathered the man into an embrace.

"Am I interrupting something?" the younger man queried, looking around the room. "No worries. Any friends of yours are friends of mine, father."


	12. Unseen

Ilyena sawed away at her steak. Not that it needed it-rather, she needed an outlet. "I can't believe anyone would send me that!"

Barid scowled. "And you say this 'A. M.' seemed to think you were interested? In a...'pet'?"

"He did! He offered me my choice of sex, age, and personality type. I tried tracing the message but it got caught in a loop somewhere. And running a search turned up about a million names with those initials." She stuffed a bite of meat into her mouth. Barid really was a wonderful cook.

"I'm sure that's why he uses them. No need for an alias if initials are that nondescript." He fiddled about with his fork and the baked potato for a moment. "How can he offer you a choice of personality type? Even if he has them Compelled, I seem to recall that it just makes them adore you and want to obey."

"Well, I looked into it. There was some research done on it for a little while after it was discovered three hundred years ago. On criminals, of course. It can be used to reduce a mind to a blank slate, so presumably if you knew how you could fill it up again. But they couldn't find a way of storing a personality template, so whoever was working with it had to start from scratch every time." Ilyena paused for a few moments to scarf down a few more bites of steak.

"Do you think A. M. knows something they didn't? It's been three hundred years. That's more than long enough to refine the weaves, maybe even develop some kind of personality-storing device."

"It's possible. Anyway, I'm sorry I can't get involved in this business with the Bore right this moment. I'll help if it turns into a crisis, but somebody needs to track down A. M., whoever he is, and his little ring of traffickers." She reached for another bite of steak and realized it was gone. "Oh, and non sequitur aside...if you ask me, you're a much better cook than Lews."

Surprisingly, Barid beamed at her. She hadn't realized she was being _that_ effusive. "Mierin doesn't think so."

"Mierin just doesn't like you, Barid. It's as simple as that." There was still some baked potato left, at least. "You said you had Elan, Lews, Mierin, and...Elan's son? Mael? That should be enough to shut off the flow of energy. Again, if it's not, just contact me and I'll show up on the double. I never knew Elan had a son."

"He's almost our age," Barid confided. "Seems Elan had a childhood sweetheart. He wouldn't say much about her, though. Went all distant when we started asking questions. All Mael would say about the matter was that when his father got into a black mood he'd joke that the family name was really short for 'Moridin'. I can only assume she's dead."

"The linguistics don't work," Ilyena pointed out, "but I would guess he knows that. I guess you could just slur it... I don't suppose that matters, though." She began gathering up her dishes. "Speaking of names, I'm thinking of putting mine in."

"Er...into what?" Barid paused in stacking the plates. "The election? You'd be wonderful in the High Seat, but won't people say you're too young?"

"Not necessarily. Not right after the negotiations with _Sindhol_. What a nightmare that was. But I came out on top...I think...more or less. That's what people will remember about me for the next few years, that I beat the Aelfinn and Eelfinn at their own game." They put the dishes into the reclamator together, and he motioned her over to the couch.

Barid's apartment really was very nice. A little on the small side, but cozy. He favored dark reddish tones, like the maroon couch, but not the bright red colors that might have made the room look bloody. Still, one of these days he was going to have to put up the money for a real house if he wanted people to take him seriously as a politician.

"I need all the resources I can get if I'm going to track down that sleaze, whoever he is. Being First Among Servants would give me a massive advantage over him. I could even campaign on the issue."

"Would your uncle help you out?" Barid raised an eyebrow at her.

"Duram?" She snickered. "Uncle Duram is as honest as the day is long. He'd call it undue influence and say no. I'm not going to give him the chance to refuse. If I can ride a little on his coattails by being his relative, I'll take it, but that's the extent of his help."

"Better than nothing," Barid said. "So...I wish you the best of luck. You'll probably need it."

"Likewise," Ilyena told him with a smile. "I mean to see that scum bound. I suppose in a way it'll be a taste of his own medicine. I just wish I knew how he'd stayed off the grid so well."

"He's deeper in the underworld than I'd realized existed, I guess," said Barid. "Now...were you planning to go home?"

Ilyena flashed him her best smile. "Actually, I was wondering if you'd let me stay here for the night."

*****

"Turn to your neighbor," the speaker proclaimed. "Turn to them, and embrace." The high-ceilinged hall carried his voice so well that the Power could hardly have done better. His audience obeyed, most with peaceful smiles.

"Now, those of you who can channel, look to the Power and take hold of it," said the speaker. He seemed a dry, dusty little man, but his voice carried throughout the hall. "The One Power is the Creator's love, given to us not as a mere tool, but as a symbol. Feel the Creator's love for you. Feel the life flow through you. Many are called, but few chosen to hold the One Power. Yet they are gifts from the Creator to us all."

"Some among the Servants of All seek to twist the Power. To bend it into their service. To uncover what the Creator has left hidden. Such people risk more than they know. They delve into shadow, and the shadow takes hold inside them."

"Alas," the listeners proclaimed by rote. Such was the dogma of the Incastar. None could confirm it, but they knew.

"The Creator has given to us all different gifts, Talents of the Power among them. To some he has given healing, to others telekinesis, to others the making of gateways, to others power over weather. But to others he has also given persuasive speech, great beauty, strength and dedication, power of will. None are greater than the others. Nor does the Creator make mistakes."

"The Creator makes no mistakes," chanted the listeners.

"Never fear to use the gifts that the Creator has given you, for all gifts are given for a purpose. Love each other and use your gifts without fear."

"Amen," said the listeners, "amen." "Amen," said Ared Mosinel.


	13. Follow You Into the Dark

"I'd call this more than a volcanic vent," Mierin said. The earth in front of her had rent itself open, revealing a lake of red-hot lava, around which a ring of black rock had already begun to form. "At least it's not a mountain already."

"I've read stories about a volcano springing up in a farmer's field in a matter of days," Lews replied. "By comparison, this is pretty slow." He stepped a little closer, careful of the streams of hardening rock that had trickled over the edge.

"I trust the Denigablis Inn will be doing no business this season," Elan observed. The volcanic rift had opened up in the courtyard among the trees where lovers had walked only last year, only a few feet from a swimming pool that was now slowly filling up with molten rock. He wove a web against the heat and moved in for a better look. His eyes widened and he stepped back.

"Elan?" Barid grabbed onto his arm. "Are you all right?"

"The sky," Elan breathed. "For a moment, it was...different. The clouds...I've never seen such a thing. They were...black and red and silver...interwoven together."

"It sounds almost like a dimensional rift," Mael suggested. "Do you suppose the Bore actually reaches some other world?"

Mierin thought on that a moment. "It's not beyond the realm of possibility. We know that there have been abilities that can't be explained with the One Power. They come and go over the course of Ages. Maybe what I found is something that was meant to wait for the next Age, or the one after that. Or it could be the source of power for some other world's creatures- _Sindhol_ , perhaps, or the Ogier's original world."

"All the better that we close it off, then," Barid suggested. "Things have to happen in their proper time. Maybe that's why it's dangerous to us now."

"Which Powers did you use to drill the Bore, Mierin?" Elan reached out a hand, waving it through the heat shimmer above the crater. "Spirit, I presume?"

"Mostly," Mierin agreed, "but also Fire and Earth. I'm not bad with Fire, but Beidomon had to supply most of the strength with Earth."

Elan considered that a moment and stretched out both his hands. Mierin embraced the Source as well and tried to focus on the Bore. It felt puckered, like a wound in the world, yet no larger than a pinprick. Amazing that it had done so much damage already. Something-no doubt Elan's weave-seized the edges and tried to pull them together. The space above the crater...flexed and contracted...and a ripple of force erupted from it. A tiny thing, just enough to shove her back and make her stumble, but not a good sign. Elan staggered, and she and Mael both reached out to catch him just in time.

"Clearly that wasn't a productive approach," Elan said.

Barid gave him a worried frown. "Do we really need to be poking at it this way?"

Mierin agreed with him for once. "We should get a room and start studying it, form some hypotheses on how to close it. We'll have to test them eventually, but I don't think throwing random weaves is going to work, or do anything that isn't destructive."

Elan shrugged. "I've used that weave for breaking off vacuoles before. It was worth a try."

"How about we go inside," Lews suggested, "and Mierin, you could try sketching out the weaves you and Beidomon originally used to open this thing. If we can all get the best possible idea of exactly what you did, maybe we can figure out how to undo it."

"It could work," Mierin agreed. "Just remember that some of the weaves are going to be saidar, which means your initial expectation of what they do may be wrong."

"Something will work," Mael said. "It's like father always says: whatever can be done can be undone."

Mierin hoped he was right. The bleak look that passed over Elan's face when his son said that, though, made her wonder.

*****

_Elan knew it was a dream from the moment he saw where they were. He'd never been back to the Southern Preserve. The scene fuzzed and faded for a moment, but the massive trees and dense green undergrowth remained._

_"It's just a little farther this way," Haile said, and vanished._

_In a blind panic, Elan charged forward and nearly followed her off the cliff. Bits of gravel that he could only hear, not see, bounded down what must have been a sheer rock face concealed by a massive network of vines. Haile clung to a handful of thin vines, her face turned up toward him. "Elan...I didn't...help!"_

_Elan seized the Source, fumbling with his fear, and in that moment the vines gave way. He lashed out with ropes of Air...and missed. Too late, too late. Haile went spinning away down the cliff._

_With a cry, Elan tried to open a gateway and found himself blocked by the preserve's dreamspike. Ecological integrity was considered paramount here. Elan gritted his teeth, wove Earth, and sprang over the side. Ledges of barren rock broke free and reached out beneath his feet, letting him bound his way down like an antelope._

_Haile was still breathing, if barely. He wove Healing-the best of it he could manage-and let the weave settle over her. He heard bones crunch, setting improperly. He felt something shift under his hands. It would be enough. He just had to get her help._

_Callbox. He had to reach someone in authority. They'd give him the dreamspike code, or open a gateway themselves. Help would be there. Where had it gone? No...he'd left it at the campsite up above them! Groaning under his breath, he wove Earth again, making a pathway he could follow. There would be time...there had to be time._

_He raced back to the campsite, crashing through the underbrush, shoving aside what he had to with the Power. Had to preserve his strength. The callbox was in his pack._

_"Help...ranger patrol...Elan Morin here. I need...medical assistance. Now!" Gasping, he held the callbox line open. They could trace it. He couldn't just wait. He turned and dashed back the other way. They'd open a gateway to wherever he was. Best to do it next to her. He barrelled along the path he had made, skidded down the outcroppings he'd formed._

_Haile's breathing was already slowing again. He wove Healing once more...and nothing happened. Her faint ragged breaths seemed to merge with his heavy ones. Anything that could be done could be undone. He wove a complex weave of Air, drawing more oxygen into her breath. Her ribs seemed to have set badly. With a grimace he wove Air again and pressed down on them till they cracked once more, then used Water to hold them in place while he wove Healing yet again. This time it worked, fusing the bones back together in the right shape._

_...she had stopped breathing. Elan ripped her shirt open. Her heart seemed to be slowing. Chest compressions. Air woven just so, to keep the oxygen flowing in. He had to keep working. Her heart...he Delved her. Elan wove Fire and Water and clamped his hands to her chest, surging electricity through her heart. Nothing. Keep trying. Anything that could be done... He shocked her again. Her heart stuttered...beat once. Went back to fluttering._

_Whatever it took. He reached in and massaged her heart directly with Water. The flash of a gateway opening behind him. "Move over, move!" A pair of Restorers shoved him aside. They couldn't stop him weaving. A third Aes Sedai shielded him. "Don't interfere, man! Let them try to save her!"_

_Elan staggered to one side. Whatever could be done, they would do it._

_But of course, she was already gone._

*****

Barid could hear Elan moaning in his sleep. He stumbled out of bed and over to his teacher's. The Denigablis would've given them all separate rooms if they hadn't insisted otherwise, for lack of other business; as it was they were in the most luxurious suite available.

He put a hand on Elan's shoulder, and the man sat bolt-upright in bed, his eyes staring at nothing. "I'm sorry! Forgive me! Please, please..."

"Elan...Elan, it's Barid. Talk to me, man. You had a nightmare, that's all. We're in Kemali." Elan's eyes seemed to focus on him, and the older man took a deep breath. "Better. You're in a hotel room. We're safe."

" _She_ isn't," Elan mumbled.

"I know, Elan," Barid sighed. "I wish you'd talk to us about her."

"Too much. Too much." Elan shook his head. "It was all I could do to tell Kamarile. You were always...good students. Maybe in time. I...I went beyond everything I knew to save her, you know."

"I'm sorry, Elan. I'm sure you did everything you could."

Elan squeezed the quilt between his fingers. "Not enough."

Barid put an arm around the older man. "Are you certain you can do this? We can manage without you."

"I can do it. You'll need me. I'm certain of it."

Barid tried not to look dejected. Elan was probably right. What they were doing...it was at the boundary between physics and metaphysics. He'd be just as vital as Mierin.

"I'll see her again," Elan said, half to himself. Odds are that was why Elan had become a philosopher in the first place. Well, that and his obvious aptitude.

"Yes," Barid assured him. "You'll see her again."


	14. Police Report

"Elan Morin Tedronai Aes Sedai."

Elan looked up...and up. An Ogier in security grey-green was standing over him. Another pair of Ogier were standing at the bedroom doors. He sat up in bed. "I am Elan Sedai, yes."

"You are under arrest."

Elan knew he should find some words to respond to this, but for the moment nothing came to him. Finally he brought out a calm, "On what charge?"

"Wanton destruction of property. You have been accused by Beni and Larine Denigablis of triggering the magma flow on their land."

Elan closed his eyes slowly and deliberately, then reopened them. "I'm sorry. Larine Denigablis hired me specifically to investigate and, if possible, close the volcanic vent."

"I am aware of that, Elan Sedai." The Ogier leaned forward. He probably didn't intend to be menacing, but this particular Ogier looked as if he spent a great deal of his time engaged in strength training and was taller than average to boot. "Did you or did you not produce a spatial shockwave yesterday while engaged in that investigation?"

"I did, when I attempted to close the vent improperly. It was an accident, and I apologized to the proprietors." Elan frowned. Was that an earring, nearly concealed in the officer's hair? He'd heard of Ogier with piercings in other parts of their bodies, but an earring was downright risque.

"I must presume they did not believe you or accept your apology. Might I ask what brings you to Kemali in the first place? Surely you didn't travel here merely to assist a hotelier." The Ogier's tone dropped into a low growl.

Elan realized he was going to have to gamble. "I'm afraid I don't know your name, _alantin_."

"I am Vairan son of Goran son of Tonath, Chief of Security for the Ninth Dominion of the Consolidated Republic. And yes, any case involving you is important enough to draw my interest, Aes Sedai." The Ninth Dominion was the smallest-it consisted of the habitable area ringing the north pole-but all the same, its Chief of Security held a position exalted enough to be the envy of most Aes Sedai. In practice, the nine Security Chiefs worked as a global council, meaning that this Ogier no doubt wielded power well outside the single Dominion he worked for.

Elan nodded. "I'm aware of my importance, at least to a degree. I presumed that security had a file on me, if only for my own protection." Vairan nodded. "I will come clean. I am investigating more than a single volcanic event. Surely you must be aware of the multiple anomalous events that have occurred in the last year, in violation of known natural law. This is the most lasting."

Vairan bared his teeth. Elan did not believe for a moment that it was a smile. "We are aware. That is why your fellow Aes Sedai are also being confined and questioned in their rooms. Most especially, Mierin Sedai. We have deduced the cause of the events you refer to."

Elan decided to make the Ogier play his hand. "Which is?"

"Do not attempt to play the fool with me, Aes Sedai. Continued radiation from the Bore. That is why you are here. And that is also why I am here. Why did you not notify the Hall of the Servants, the Council of Nine, or both?" The Ogier slapped a palm down on the bedside table with a thunderous crack.

"Because we were concerned about the political fallout during the current instability. I'm well aware that Rexam Wol was elected as an interim First Servant, to provide continuity between Duram and whoever takes the office next. His qualifications are adequate-and no more than that. As for the Council of Nine-you are aware that the Fifth Rodholder is one of my party, surely?"

The Ogier sneered. "Lews Therin Telamon-while he is due my respect-has not yet reported to the Rodholder's office since his election. It could be argued that he is in violation of his oath to serve the Consolidated Republic by not at least notifying the other Rodholders."

"I can assure you that our goal was to handle the matter as quietly as possible to prevent panic and disruption. These events are occurring on a global basis-possibly beyond this planet, if one of the reports I've heard is correct."

"It is," Vairan said impatiently. "Do not discuss it here."

"Then you can imagine the results of a _global_ panic, Vairan son of Goran. If these events continue much longer, the cause will be discovered by the general public, and the total collapse of society might not be far behind. It remains entirely possible that my team can properly seal the Bore with relatively little difficulty within a week or two if we are given liberty to work."

Vairan sat down cross-legged on the floor, bringing him closer to Elan's level. Even so, he was not quite eye-to-eye until he leaned forward again, glowering. He spoke in a harsh whisper that might have been inaudible outside the room. "So Aes Sedai always say. Last year, the Aes Sedai said that we would soon have an immense new source of power at our disposal. What will you say next year, Aes Sedai?"

"Hopefully nothing of vast importance," Elan growled back. "We need to solve this crisis, and I have no desire to make another. I strongly suggest that you assist me, alantin, not obstruct my efforts."

"One more question, Aes Sedai. Answer it to my satisfaction, and I'll decline to take you into custody for the moment." Vairan's face was stone. "You're a favored candidate to be First Among Servants. Have you been contacted by anyone using the initials A.M.?"

"I have no intention of running," Elan stated flatly, "so unsurprisingly the answer is no."

"Of course not," Vairan muttered. " _You_ don't want power."

"Security Chief," Elan asked with a frown, "I don't understand. Why are you behaving in this manner? I am a respected Aes Sedai and philosopher who has been accused only of a fairly petty crime, and whose record is otherwise spotless. What about this situation warrants your anger, or this interrogation?"

Vairan rose from the floor and glared down at him. "You don't want to know, human. More importantly, you don't need to know."

Elan tried to breathe a sigh of relief as the Ogier walked out the door. Unfortunately, he was still under far too much stress to succeed.

*****

Officer Tekor had to ask the question. "Chief Vairan, was that really necessary? He is Aes Sedai."

Vairan spun to face him. "Do you ever really think about what the Aes Sedai are, officer? They have all the faults of humans, because they are human. They are hasty, they are petty, they are violent. Yet they have a lifespan much more like ours, and power on the scale of a Treesinger at the least. The Aes Sedai are respected by humans for all the wrong reasons. We Ogier ought to know better. They are a greater danger to this world than anyone else here."

Tekor didn't get it, of course. "I, ah...as you say, sir."

Vairan sighed. "Have you noticed that the man has no close living relatives save for a sister and a son?"

"Yes, sir, but he appears to be a sport. Very few of his family can channel, none save his son with any degree of strength. His father and most of his siblings are dead of simple old age. His mother died during a flare-up of the _Sindhol_ conflict. The remaining casualties seem to be mere accident, sir."

Vairan returned to stalking down the wooden-paneled corridor. Something here was in disrepair, probably as a result of the lack of business; he could hear water dripping in the distance. "I'm sorry, officer, but under current conditions I can't let myself think of any death or injury as 'accidental' until it's proven twice over. You've read the reports. Violent crimes have doubled globally, tripled in my Dominion, and risen by _an order of magnitude_ in this single town. If we don't find the cause soon, we're going to have violence on the scale of an actual revolution. Do you understand the consequences of that, boy?"

"Do you think it's the Aes Sedai?" Tekor's reflexive trust of Aes Sedai was perfectly ordinary, and no less frustrating for it.

"I don't know what it is, officer," Vairan said grouchily, "but if it's not the Aes Sedai, why haven't they stopped it in a whole year?"

"They don't know about it?" Tekor's puzzlement seemed genuine, at least.

Vairan snorted loudly and walked on down the hall.

*****

"Do you see it, Mom? They published my book!" Sein Verisant-no, Sein Verisant _Rethis_ -raced into the kitchen. His mother was bent over the counter chopping vegetables. It was an old way of cooking, but the old ways of preparing food were often the best.

"How wonderful, dear." Mother didn't look up at him. "Would you like a strawberry goulash?"

"A what? Mother, you're not listening, They published my book on linked gateways! They gave me a third name for the experiments! Isn't it wonderful?" Sein waved the blue-bound book at her. Since when did mother cook, anyway? Father had cooked most of the time in their house. Mother's food had tended to taste like burnt leather.

"Did you make them name you Sourain after your uncle?" Mother dropped a lump of meat into a skillet.

"What? No! Rethis, mother. They gave me the name 'Rethis'." It meant something like 'clever', he thought. He tried again to show her the red book and its golden title, and again she ignored him.

"I'm fixing a chocolate sushi dish," she said this time. Chocolate sushi? What the-?

"Aw, blood and ashes. I'm dreaming, aren't I?" Sein was still just Sein Verisant, and the paperback he held in his hand was a figment of his imagination.

"I was wondering when you'd figure it out," said Mother, and turned, holding out a long serrated knife. On the countertop lay the skinned remains of Father's face. "Welcome to the world's nightmares, sonny."

The knife penetrated his throat before he could scream.


	15. Time to Murder and Create

Reading about lesson plans made Saine drowsy. She was a sufficiently disciplined student not to simply fall asleep over the books, but she was well aware that it would be all the more difficult to retain the information. Periodically she embraced the Source, letting the joy of it revive her a little; it wore her down just a tiny bit as well, but at this low a level it was no worse than going for a jog.

"Skills for healthy and responsible decision making...Subheading B..." Saine sighed. There was only so long you could focus on one subject before further study became counterproductive. She closed the book and went searching through the virtual stacks. "Thaumokinesin Generation In Channeling Brains...no. A New Theory of the One Power, by Mierin Eronaile...hmm. Maybe tomorrow. Aha! Genetic Basis of Channeling Ability."

None of this material was restricted, but it was sufficiently esoteric that not many people had studied it extensively. The basic alleles for channeling ability were well-known to science, though no one was really certain why they were scattered through several chromosomes. A few older books speculated that the ability had originally been genetically-engineered into humanity sometime before the Chaos War that had ended the First Age. There was even a general consensus on a pair of genotypes that produced maximal strength in the Power and maximal dexterity. Lews Therin Telamon, Barid Bel Medar, and Elan Morin Tedronai all had the first (as did Mierin Eronaile, minus one Y chromosome). Individuals with the latter genotype were less well-known, as environmental factors had a bit more of an effect there, but Lillen Moiral and Joar Addam Nessossin were both believed to be as dextrous with the Power as it was possible for, respectively, women and men to be.

"The trillion-credit question is, why has no one ever tried transferring the genes to non-channelers?" Saine tapped her lips and thought. It was always possible that, buried in thousands of years of records, there was some good reason why it hadn't been attempted, or had been a failure and forgotten.

"Ugh," she groaned, encountering the ancient, labored analogy comparing the Power to the water cycle. While it wasn't likely, it really was quite possible to "use up" all the water on the planet in the sense of having it all tied up in various processes-in fact, there had been a series of major water shortages near the end of the First Age that had eventually required massive desalinization projects. Of course, there had been more in the icecaps and in the oceans, but using those simply set the critical point further away.

So was it possible to "use up" the One Power in the same sense? Given that it was supposed to drive the flow of time, that could theoretically have catastrophic results. Could it be that a higher percentage of channelers in the population had once led to time distortions? Surely something like that would be in the records, though.

Saine sighed and set an autonomous agent to searching through the records online. Possibly it would find something, but she suspected there was only one way to find out why the channeling genes were still so restricted at this late date: spread them.

The next step was to identify likely volunteers. That shouldn't be too hard: track down people who had tested for channeling ability and failed. Likely, most of those would be open to an attempt to grant them the ability. It would have to be done discreetly; even if the experiment were sanctioned, it would have to be done quietly to prevent mass upheavals. Involving the Nym would both smooth things over and complicate matters; the Nym were all supposed to be involved in fertility projects.

Saine began to draw up a schedule and a rotating list of contacts. This was going to get interesting quickly.

*****

Letan picked over the new fancloth suit with extreme care. The shifting camouflage effect was all very well, but if there was a flaw somewhere it would be very easy to miss. The last thing she needed was to have a wardrobe malfunction while out clubbing. She had just gotten as far as the seat of the pants when chimes started ringing in the air, over and over again. A line of light appeared in the living room, visible through the doorway.

She raised an eyebrow and triggered the answering weave. The gateway popped open and Eval virtually leaped through. "I know I'm early," he panted out. "Let me explain."

"You're not dressed for a party, either," Letan said, her voice equal parts amusement and irritation.

"I've got plenty of time still," Eval insisted. "You need to see this." He held out a sheaf of papers and plastic sheets like the ones they'd retrieved from Venus.

"You have a translation already?" She grabbed it out of his hands.

"Only a partial one, but with some very important elements. And there's the matter of how I got it so quickly." Eval pointed out a third element of the bundle that she'd missed-a carefully-laminated set of ancient paper pages. "This is one of the first known references to the Rignei hypothesis. Provenance uncertain, but definitely dates to the late First Age. It's not clear whether it's part of a larger document, or was intended to be this short."

Letan flipped through them, wincing in places. "It looks...disturbing. 'Only the mad destroy themselves and all they have wrought. And only the phoenix lives forever.' What kind of philosophy is that?"

"Maybe not philosophy at all. Some of my colleagues claim it's merely a work of fiction. But here-look where he names the civilizations he's lived through. Lur, Candra, Thragan, Kah, Mu, Atlantis...and the unnamed civilization he's writing to. Seven ages in total. Of course, it also indicates that they lasted twenty thousand years or more."

Letan shrugged at that. "Could it be a fictionalized version of the hypothesis, inaccurate because someone's writing a story about it instead of talking about the details?"

"As good a guess as any," Eval agreed. "Here's what it has to do with the Venus texts. We ran them through the computers, and identified a handful of probable linguistic matches, but most of them were just articles or prepositions. Barely enough to start on, even if they're right. On a whim, I ran home and got this. It's the reason I went into archaeology in the first place. And on the first run with it..." He pointed to a series of words he'd printed in marker on the plastic sheets.

"Phoenix...pyre...madness...war...death...death, death...death?" She flipped over to the page where he'd written down the words on the gateway itself. Most of the glyphs were still blank, but above one he had written it down in marker again. "Death."

"It could mean 'tomb', or 'grave'. Perhaps the supposed gate is actually someone's crypt. But the only way to be sure would be to go back and figure out how to open it."

"It could also be part of a warning not to ever open the thing again. Especially considering we were attacked by walking dead men." Letan looked him over again. "Sorry, but I have to ask. You were asleep, right?"

Eval just gave a little smile. "I know my reputation. Yes, I was asleep the whole time, right up to when you started shaking me."

"I can't say I like the sound of these matches the computer's coming up with." Letan glanced down at her suit. "I'm not even sure I feel like going out drinking now."

"Personally, it'd make me feel better, but I can go on my own," Eval said patiently. "It's up to you. I wouldn't mind seeing what you look like in that suit, to tell the truth."

"You're incorrigible, you know that?" Letan found that she was smiling again. "Fine, help me get ready, I'll help you get ready, and we'll go."

"You'll help me get ready?" Eval seemed confused by that concept.

Letan chuckled. "You want to be hit on by the bi girls, or just by guys? Trust me, Eval, if you're clubbing with me, you'd better get your clothes right."

"Oh. Of course."

*****

Joar stroked the strings of his balfone. He had mastered several forms of instruments, but stringed instruments had always been the most soothing to him. He would have preferred his harp, but it was unstrung for transport right now.

Xaradu's hands massaged his shoulders. "You've got to relax, Joar. It's just a jam session. We might not even record anything today."

Joar sighed. "We haven't recorded anything in several days, and not for lack of trying. I don't know. Something's not right. We need a new sound." He glanced out the window of the sho-wing, but only clouds were visible. "I don't know how to make it gel."

"Have you thought about using your weave?" Xaradu leaned down over the seat, working harder at his muscles. "I don't know anyone else who can do that with the Power."

Joar shook his head. "It takes a lot of dexterity with Air to make music that way. I've never been able to teach it. More women could probably do it, if someone else figured it out first. But you need the talent with music as much as with the Power, and I guess the right combination just doesn't come along very often."

"Well, then, why not use it in your performances? You've never done that, that I know of. It'd be something unique to you." She came around the seat and looked into his eyes. "I think you should do it. It might help."

Joar just sighed again. "I used to. When I was in my twenties, just getting started. My mother encouraged me to do it on stage, even though I still had problems performing live. Then one day I fouled it up. Making a static melody, or altering a voice-those things are easy. Even with the Talent-I guess it is a Talent, even if it's too rare to be in the books-making music on the fly is pretty hard. It was the first time I ruined a performance. Mother had a fit. I've never done it in front of an audience again."

"Joar. It's time you tried." He tried to cut in, and she shushed him with a finger to his lips. "You always go on about how you can't seem to live up to your potential. Maybe this is why." She leaned forward. "Play me some music, Joar. Don't use your hands. Don't use your mouth." Her lips met his, for a moment. "You'll need those for me."

*****

Vairan stood on the crater's lip. The Aes Sedai had been here. Whatever he'd done, it had triggered that shockwave. Of course, whatever he'd done, he'd done with the One Power, which meant Vairan had no way of matching it.

Still, there were other means. Ogier song was a power primarily over life, to be sure, but not all life was organic in nature. A world had a life of its own. Vairan hummed under his breath. Mierin had said this place felt like a wound; Vairan could sense the same. Like a pinprick to the skin, bleeding just a few drops at a time, but still a wound. Probably not many of his people could have told that; his Talent as a Treesinger was fairly strong. Still humming, he shifted forward, inching toward the _wrongness_ , and...

The world changed. He glanced down quickly, making sure he was still there. His body was the same, and his footing on the edge of the crater was intact. Looking back up, though, he saw the impossible: a sky of twisting striated clouds, woven together in black and silver. Vairan started to take a step back.

VAIRAN. SON OF GORAN SON OF TONATH.

The voice that was not a voice crashed down on him, forcing him to his knees. His hands flailed in midair before managing to grab the hot stone edge. Damned if he would let anyone or anything make him cower, though.

"I am Vairan, son of Goran son of Tonath. Who's asking?"

I AM THE ONE WHO WILL GIVE YOU WHAT YOU SEEK. IF YOU WILL SERVE ME.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eval's treasured document is a short story by Fredric Brown, "Letter to a Phoenix". It's fascinating and well-written, but the aesop is terribly broken.


	16. Fhtagn

Ishar was no master of the Unseen World. As he strolled his way through the Hall of the Servants, his shoes shifted slightly and his researchers' robes tended to change cut-though not color; they remained blue-white. He had control enough-he was not going to suddenly turn himself into a giraffe, or lose himself in a daydream-but if he was not cautious even his body might shift a bit. Ishar had never had much body awareness. He was a consciousness, a soul that happened to inhabit this form.

It was all right. His strength here was not found in focus. He came to a halt in the center of the Great Assembly Hall and began to dry-wash his hands, concentrating. A globe sprang into existence, levitating above the floor, shaping itself swiftly into the image of the world. Imperfect, again. That was to be expected. Still, Ishar's grasp of geography was more than adequate to sculpt the major mountain ranges, the seas, the great jungle that occupied most of the southern continent of Taralia, and so forth. That done, he began to imagine bright white dots and jet-indigo sparks sprinkling the world map. Channelers, in the proportions Saine's searches had found. Holography could do this, with proper programming, but here Ishar could simply think his subject into existence, and it would _be_. Too absent-minded he might be, to be a master of this place, but no one could match his imagination.

Probably the details of the globe shifted when his eyes were off them, but so long as he kept his gaze on a spot it held the image he was imposing, and held it perfectly. The massive continent of Eufrasica was a blocky shape girding half the globe. Supposedly it had once been several smaller landmasses before the Chaos War. No one was entirely clear on what that conflict had been; tales told of probability shadows looming from world to world, of the return of the titans Wolf Prince and Man of Steel, of the land itself flicker-flashing from one form into another, even of the death of infinite universes. No one knew its true history, and if it was in fact (as most historians believed) a conflict between mirrors of the Wheel, no one could know in any detail.

Wait. Focus. The flickers of black and white had blurred into meaningless static while he wool-gathered. That was his flaw, of course. He brought them back into resolution. Though he was nearing his limits, Ishar imagined more detail still-fine translucent crystals joined the sparks, men and women whose genetics _almost_ enabled them to channel, or brought them the tiniest trickles of the Power, too useless to weave. Saine was right-it should take the tiniest hints of genetic alteration to give people like that the talent. Why had it not been done, at least for those? Perhaps the standing flows were at fault-giving the use of so many _ter'angreal_ to the masses-but what compensated for the greater flexibility, or the extended lifespan? Of course, Saine didn't truly understand why he cared so much. Ishar would be glad to see the world improved by such a factor, but he was self-aware enough to admit his own jealousy. He had passed the testing to become Aes Sedai, but he had no more than fair-to-middling strength. What he had done in his field, he had done with his intellect more than with the Power-though of course that helped. If he could channel like Tedronai, or like those young upstarts Barid and Lews...what could he accomplish then? The same genetic technologies that might give Power to the Powerless could just as certainly be used to augment the Powerful.

Ishar winced. The globe had blurred into a ball of random blues, greens, and browns. It was the fault of his distraction again. Even the Oneness did not seem to help much, unless he fixed his mind on what fascinated him. Ishar waved the globe away, conjuring a humanoid figure. A single man, ordinary of color and build. Ishar summoned up sources of strength-genes for bulk, for muscle mass, for muscle composition-and wove them into the imagined figure, which swelled and thickened. Better senses-a larger nose, almost a muzzle, for better smell; enlarged ears; eyes that glimmered yellow in the dark. Larger...er... Ishar sighed and disciplined his mind again. How long since he had been with a man? Ten years. Bardan Yat, with whom he had also shared a passion for genetics. Bardan and he had fought-the same old fight over outdated ethics standing in the way of science-and Ishar had walked out. Then Thelaine had been part of his life for a while as well. Then nothing. Perhaps he would have to indulge with Saine for a while, if she was interested. Or perhaps he should alternate more carefully to keep his blind idiot hormone god satiated by finding a man. Third option: design a retrovirus and just edit such frivolous things out of his genetics altogether.

The figure in front of him snorted. Its features had grown still more animalistic while Ishar's thoughts wandered. It had long horns, hooves, and the wrong sort of tail-perhaps a big cat's. Its priapism had also worsened. Yes, perhaps he would go find a young man this time. With any luck, his urges would end up being sublimated afterwards for another decade, and by that time his work would have transformed him beyond base needs. Ishar waved a hand, dismissing the ridiculous specter.

It snarled at him and charged.

The bull-creature was not real. Ishar tried to fix its absence in his thoughts, but that was difficult with it trying to impale him. The notion flickered across the Oneness of how absurd it would be if his own creation murdered him in the Unseen Realm. There might even be a manhunt when they found his mutilated body. Police work acknowledged the World of Dreams-it had to, as that was the easiest way in today's society to kill anyone-but finding evidence about such a crime was next to impossible. Hadn't there been a story in the news-? Ishar wove a barrier of Air to turn the creature aside as he dodged another charge. _Focus, you fool! Focus!_ Still more absurd if his own fool procreative instinct was what led to his death. The Creator really would have done better to leave such things out.

It...was...not...there. Still the bull-thing held its existence. He thought he had done a better job of it than to let the phantasm obtain a shadow of consciousness, but that was the greatest danger of making animate creatures here. It was almost as if he was being resisted by another true mind; the creature just would not give up and fade away. Ishar's focus just was not sufficient.

"What a fool I'm being," he muttered. He was trying to use his own weakest area instead of his strongest. Ishar imagined a thick woven basket over the creature's head, the hard woody threads tangling up its horns. No longer able to see him or where it was going, the monster thrashed about in a frenzy, not clever enough to use its hands. In its rage, it began to bash its head against the floor, trying to knock the basket loose. Distraction...and...there it went. The bull-creature dissolved into the psychic froth of _Tel'aran'rhiod_.

It had been an interesting notion, after all. Though what use such a creature could ever have was beyond him. Any real engineered human should have more intelligence than that. And with that, Ishar decided, it was long past time to wake up. He was going to get all tangled in a nightmare-or worse-and give the police a headache otherwise. Ishar closed his eyes and awoke.

*****

He stepped out from behind the podium where he had been waiting. This one had escaped him. Aes Sedai were often stronger here. It was to be expected. It should not be expected. Still he did not think he had done anything the geneticist could report as hostile. He had manipulated only the man's own creations. Disgusting, it had been.

Maybe that was the trouble. Relying too much on things the prey already controlled. He thought too intellectually. He needed instinct. He needed to give in to the ways of the Great Dream. Let it flow. Let it change. Let it snare.

They were trying to name him. They sought to define him. He refused to be defined. He would change again. He would go.

*****

"You're certain?" Mierin glared at the Ogier, but he simply shrugged.

"Word came today," said Vairan. "I may not trust you as far as you could throw me, but I'm to let you do as you like with the Bore. Close it if you can. The Rodholders-minus your little delinquent here-have requested that I focus my energies on a more tangible case anyway. So to speak. We have a serial killer on the loose."

Barid seemed about to jump out of his skin. "A serial killer? Truthfully? But how? Why?"

"Eh, who knows why any serial killer kills?" Vairan muttered under his breath and shook his head. "As for how...it wasn't much of a mystery. Three locked bedrooms, three deaths. No sign of Gateway cuts, and the third murder involved crushing force smashing a woman sleeping on an air mattress, which was unharmed. The only m. o. that fits the facts is killing from _Tel'aran'rhiod_. Now we just have to figure out how in the name of Life and Growth we find any positive evidence. What are you doing?"

Lews had pulled out a callbox. "I'm putting my Dominion on alert. No non-adepts are to enter the Unseen World until you catch him. You have a nickname for this one yet?"

"Well, the truant takes action." Vairan was wry enough to wring water from a stone. "We've designated this fellow Ca'tel'alu. Good on you, Telamon."

"Dreamtwister," Mierin repeated, mostly to herself. She'd been practicing intensively in the Unseen World for most of a year now-Kamarile's therapy involved taking control of her dreams-but a serial killer was likely to be much more powerful, though she'd found she had a significant talent there. "I suspect someone will have to confront him there."

"More than likely," Vairan acknowledged. "Don't envy whoever has to do it. We think he may have attacked three or four other people who got away. He's got a nasty sense of humor. Uses blades when he can, but one person's reported being chased by flying sharks and another their computer coming to life and trying to implant them with cables."

"I'll try and remember that," Elan said dryly. Elan was an adept in the Unseen World himself, though she thought he used the ability sparingly.

Vairan started to turn, then halted. "I suppose you deserve to know." He inhaled deeply, released the breath in a heavy sigh, and explained, "He seems to have some especial hatred for Aes Sedai. Three potential victims so far and one of the dead. Considering what a small minority you are-"

"He's probably targeting us," Mierin agreed. "You needn't be concerned. We have the Power, after all."

Vairan grunted. "We think he turned the Servant he killed into an ape. Unusual posture of the corpse. Apes can't channel or think like sapients. Beat him under those circumstances if you can."

"We'll be cautious," Barid said in a placating tone. "We've got other business for now anyway."

"See that you take care of it," Vairan warned, and stalked off towards a hoverfly in the courtyard.

Elan sighed. "I was hoping we could enter the Unseen World and study the Bore from there. Perhaps it would be easiest to close there."

"Possibly," Mierin agreed, "but now we have Ca'tel'alu to worry about. No use trying to close it if someone sneaks up on us and puts a knife through our throats."

"So maybe we deal with him first," Mael suggested. "Someone has to."

Elan shook his head. "We have too much on our plates already. Leave him to the police if we can."

Lews and Barid nodded. With a sigh of regret, Mierin agreed.

One day she was going to learn enough about the Unseen World to make this Dreamtwister weep.

*****

Vairan murmured pensively as the hoverfly lifted off. He hadn't liked doing what he just did, letting the Aes Sedai go, but he had his orders. "Stedding Kintolan," he told the pilot. "From there I'll go by ground to Emar Dal."

"You expect the killer to strike there?" asked Lieutenant Chailan daughter of Reshal daughter of Theonan.

Vairan shook his head. "I expect to make him try."

The Aes Sedai would have made wonderful bait, but he had his orders. LET THEM TRY, the entity had said. LET THEM SEEK THEIR DOOM.

Well, doom sounded good enough for him.


	17. Apocalyptic

Eval was glad he'd consumed no mind-altering substances tonight beyond a couple of drinks. The spinning, flashing lights that dominated Amy's were dizzying alone, like most clubs he'd been to, and the interaction with the fancloth suits about half the women were wearing only made it worse. The other half of the women were dressed like the _daien_ dancers on the various daises surrounding the bar proper, which was to say they wore a few strategic pieces of cloth and jewelry that hardly hid their various assets.

He slid a few credit slips into the waistband of the nearest dancer, who'd gone beyond the call of duty; the cloth strips she had on were streith, and were in fact translucent blue rather than the grey-green of boredom he knew most such club dancers would produce. She glanced at him briefly, enough to let him know she appreciated the money at least. Eval sighed. That was the trouble with Amy's, of course.

Letan hooted at another dancer and stuck a full sheath of credit slips into the woman's thong; the dancer winked at her and blew a kiss. Eval had slowly grown accustomed to Letan in her own fancloth suit, which, he had to admit, worked just fine with her boyish figure and close-cropped hair. It still seemed to ripple with multicolored light, but he could watch her and not get sick.

She clapped him on the back, then dragged him off in another direction, striding determinedly but a little unsteadily. "I warned ya 'bout the girls here, Evvie. Even the ones who'll look twice at ya aren't here lookin' for a guy right now. Doesn't mean you can't find one who'll take ya home, but you won't be her first choice."

Eval chuckled. "I know, Letan. You've told me a dozen times tonight." She'd had quite a few more beers than he'd expected her to manage. "And before you ask, I've told you three times that I can't trace the 'Amy's' name past about two thousand years back, when 'seeking Amy' or 'chasing Amy' meant you were a girl looking for a girl. Nobody knows why."

Letan rolled her eyes at him. "I ain't dumb, Evvie. I 'member what ya told me."

"I know you aren't stupid, Letan, but you are getting drunk. Just...try not to overdo it, that's all."

She snickered at him. "You'll know when I get good and drunk, Evvie. I'll start Foretelling."

Blink. "You get the Foretelling when you're...drunk?"

"Lotsa people do. Haven't you ever noticed how when people lose themselves they're more likely to see the future? First time linking, gettin' drunk, getting laid, when they're scared or angry, that sort of thing? I get 'em when I'm drunk."

"I really haven't. I'll have to look into that." Foretelling was one of the most poorly understood Talents. It was clearly linked to the Power, and there was some evidence that a Foreteller might be channeling small amounts of Spirit, but no one had yet figured out how to do it on purpose. He'd spotted a project to catch Foretellings on video three years back but had forgotten about it. Maybe he should look back into it and see if they'd found anything. "Do you remember what you've said?" Many people didn't.

"As long as I'm drunk, but it usually goes away afterward." She hesitated, then added, "I haven't had any for a few months. They don't come every time. Woo, that one's hot. And bi, Evvie-see the streith patch on her back?"

"Right, right!" He had entirely missed it, but since she was tiny and flat-chested he couldn't make himself worry too much. The room was awash in gorgeous women and there was no way he was going to settle.

"I Foretell you're not going home with any of those three," Letan said grandly. "They're together."

"Really." Eval frowned at her. "Even the Ogier?"

Letan pointed at the Ogier's left ear, from which the hair had been carefully pulled back. "Remember your symbolism. She's got partners, but they're not married. Of course, I've never heard of an Ogier marryin' a human, but there's got to be a first time. Now, that isn't a way humans usually do it, but they've got their hair to match hers. Got to wonder how they've got things set up."

Eval laughed. "And I thought I saw strange things at the bars I visit on my own!"

Letan laughed along with him. "You'll learn."

"Now that one I recognize," he said, pointing out a pair of women.

"What's that she's got? A party game? That red rod? It's too big to be what it looks like otherwise."

"I've seen half a dozen of those at different bars, and yes, it is a party game of a sort. You channel a little Fire into them and it puts you under something like a Compulsion."

A chain of dancers wove through right then, or Letan might have leapt up and headed over toward the woman with the rod. "That's dangerous, Eval. She could-"

"You have to hold it and channel into it yourself. Nobody makes them available without making you read a form on what they do. I guess in theory someone could force you, but I can't see how it'd be worth the effort. It's fairly specific."

Letan relaxed slightly. "What exactly does it do?"

"Makes you suggestible and horny, so that you interpret whatever people tell you to do in the most sexual way possible. There's no way to control how it gets interpreted, so even if you say something like 'get a room' you can't make them take you with them, or pick someone you want. See?" The woman with the rod had climbed onto a table and was dancing around, wielding the _ter'angreal_ suggestively. "It's not a hundred percent safe, I guess, but as long as people know the risks I don't see the harm in it."

"I guess. I have to wonder sometimes about the uses we put the Power to. Three hundred years ago-"

"Three hundred years ago we weren't so jaded. Culturally, I mean. Listen to the music in places like this. It's got a basic, primal rhythm, a human rhythm, but you never hear it outside of a club, because it's been done to death. It's useful as a tool for parties, and that's about all. Just like that _ter'angreal_."

Letan seemed to be growing pensive. "We can Travel to other worlds, but this is what ordinary people want to use the One Power for."

Eval shrugged. "What do you think people will do on other worlds? Don't get me wrong, I'd love to think that one day humans will colonize the galaxy, but it doesn't match with the data we're finding. Even if the Rignei hypothesis is wrong, FTL is still impossible except via Gateway, and I don't think even a ring of seventy-two wielding Djedt could open a Gateway across lightyears. And if we did get there, we'd still need entertainment. We're just that kind of animal."

Letan sagged down onto a barstool. "Can't get there, can we? Is anything we do even worth it? I'm a xenogeologist and we can't even...can't...can't..."

"Hey, hey..." Eval looked into her bloodshot eyes-they were level with his, with her slouching this way. "No pessimism at a party, Letan Obral. C'mon now..." Letan's eyes rolled back in her head. "Letan, what...hey, try to stay calm. Stay with me." That hadn't been a joke, had it? "You were _serious_?"

Her eyes twitching, Letan began to moan under her breath, a high, faint keening that was unlike any moan Eval had ever appreciated a woman making. "He...he...he wants to stop us, he...is waking up. The liar speaks, he blasphemes the Pattern to suborn...those who bound him last, who bound him fast. The betrayer's doom approaches and he...he will cut us off. We have to...we have to go while we still can!" As her voice rose her hands flicked out and seized Eval by the collar. "We have to go!"

A bartender leaned over the bar. "Hey, buddy, if she says you need to go maybe you should go." Eval nodded and impatiently waved him off.

Foretelling. This couldn't be happening. Was someone seriously having a Foretelling in a bloody nightclub, right in front of him? "Where, Letan? Where do we have to go?"

"Down the hall of mirrors...beyond space and time, beyond death and chaos, it waits for us, broken but unbreakable. The heartstone ring...the sign of the wolf...find it there, find it and bring it back..." She had him by the throat now, though she wasn't gripping with any strength.

"Bring what back, Letan?" A heartstone ring? The bartender was holding a callbox. By the Light, was he going to get arrested again? He was the one in danger of getting choked to death!

Letan leaned forward until the vacant twitching whites of her eyes stared sightlessly into his own. "Death...negation...impede...summons. Death negation impede summons."

"I don't..."

"DEATH NEGATION IMPEDE SUMMONS!" Letan's entire body began to convulse, her grip tightening on his throat-she was going to kill him, and it wasn't even voluntary! She stood, almost lifting him into the air by the neck. Eval saw an image of himself as a little boy toddling about, another of his first crush...

Then a spray of vomit hit him in the face, and he half-caught, half-was-landed-on by Letan as she crumpled. Still breathing. She must have passed out. Maybe from the Foretelling. Maybe from the alcohol. Maybe both.

Eval began to gather napkins from the bar. "Er...sorry about that...move along, nothing to see here." Eval motioned to the bartender. "Um...can you get us a ride?" What a night. What a bloody _bajad_ night.

*****

Barid tried not to jump when Lews stepped through the Gateway behind him. This place-the spatial rift, the lava, the troublesome alantin-must be getting to him. He wasn't sleeping well, and when he did sleep he found only shifting, hard-to-recall nightmares. A dark mountain, a lake of fire, men without eyes...

"I think we can enter the Unseen World safely," Lews Therin said. "I've borrowed a dreamspike."

"Aren't those supposed to be government-use only?" Mierin said disapprovingly.

Lews shrugged. "I'm government personnel on important business. Sooner or later the Bore's going to make more trouble if someone doesn't close it. Let's go down the list again."

"Father and I will be in the World of Dreams," Mael said. "You operate the dreamspike and coordinate, and Barid and Mierin stay here in the physical world."

Elan nodded. "I believe that if we use the vacuole-pinching weave simultaneously in both worlds, we can close the Bore without further incident. But it has to be simultaneous down to the second."

"Maybe we should get more women so that we can link," Lews suggested.

Barid shook his head. "It sounds like a good idea, but this has already gone on for months too long. We have to strike while we have the chance. Besides, we'd still need someone to hold open a code-keyed Gateway while we work, or the link would snap. We're just going to have to synchronize our timers and trust ourselves."

"And if we screw up?" Mael seemed to realize that, family connections or not, he was the outsider here-which gave him the best odds of breaking up groupthink. So far he'd done admirably. "What kind of consequences are we talking about?"

"Best case scenario," Mierin said, "the Bore stays open and maybe radiates a little more heavily. Worst case scenario, we tear the thing wide open in the World of Dreams."

"Not here?" Mael queried.

"Here if we tear it open, we have a stable dimensional portal, which has its drawbacks," Mierin explained. "But the properties of the Unseen World don't allow that. The Unseen World already reflects every place within a single super-cosmos, so trying to open an interdimensional portal other than back into the waking world would create a...how would you describe it, Elan?"

"A spiritual singularity."

Barid squinted at that. Lews was wincing and Mierin shifting uneasily. He thought he saw what Elan was getting at, but he'd always needed just a little more explanation than Lews. "So you're saying it sucks our souls in?"

"And destroys them, yes," Elan said, blandly. There was something odd in that, as if Elan was purposefully ignoring something. "Not just ours, either. If a rift like that is left open, it could begin swallowing the souls of dreamers worldwide. It could become an outright world-ending event. So we must _not_ let that happen. We have to seal any such rift even if it eats us all in the process."

"How do we avoid that?" Mael asked.

"Precision timing," Mierin said, holding up one finger.

Elan put up two. "Use of both halves of the Power, specifically one in the waking world and the other in the Unseen World. One to push, the other to pull, to put it in very simple terms."

Barid held up three fingers. "Perfectly formed weaves, the first time. Not a thread out of place."

Mael nodded. "That sounds like we've got it. Let's make holos of the webs we need so we can use them for reference. We won't get a chance to practice, for obvious reasons."

Lews looked at Barid. Barid looked at Elan. The room seemed to hold its breath.

"So that's it," Barid said. Honestly, he felt relieved. "Tomorrow, we seal the Bore."

Elan nodded. "Forever."

*****

"You're sure of this?" Eval asked.

"Added the phrase in just like you said it," Tinead said with a nod. She was pretty. He enjoyed working with her. His mind skipped over that, for once. "Death negation impede summons. I'm guessing it's an overly-literal translation."

Eval nodded. A good readable translation couldn't be too literal, but first you had to get there. Especially with glyphs you were trying to translate through combinatorial mathematics, literal was best at this stage. "Negation meaning, probably, any linguistic element like 'no' or 'not'."

Tinead handed him the paper. "It looks like some kind of poetry. Not couplets, but similar arrangement. It's still not all there, but this part is nearly complete. We got a little bit of fill-in in some other spots too."

##### final war negation hope

against dark sky (eternal?)

peak guardian #####

dead ##### guardian

death negation impede summons

Eval rubbed his eyes. "Tinead, does this look at all familiar to you?"

"Yes, sir, you bet it does. I did my thesis on this. The legend of the Yellow Horn."

"Yaller," Eval corrected absently. "The oldest sources specifically say 'Yaller'."

"I kind of figured that was just a colloquialism, sir."

Eval shook his head. Bad idea, as it was already throbbing achily. What kind of students were they turning out these days? "Wrong time period for that dialect. It doesn't matter right now."

"Aes Sedai, where did you find this?"

There were still speckles of dried vomit on his hands. But Letan was going to be all right. "You don't want to know, Tinead. You really don't. Because we have to go back."

Death negation impede summons. Or, more colloquially translated:

The grave is no bar to my call.


	18. Absalom

Elan fervently wished he could have gotten a bit more sleep. That incessant dripping... He supposed that once the Bore was closed, the magma upwelling would subside and the Denigablises could finally get their plumbing repaired. He stumbled down the stone hallway, passing door after door before finally reaching Mierin's. Elan knocked.

"It's open," she called to him. "I've been waiting for you."

The room was comfortably ordinary, aside from the large fireplace made from round river stones, and that was a pleasant touch all the same. Nobody really needed a fireplace these days, but somehow a fire always seemed more comforting than electric heating, let alone just wrapping the room in a web. Mierin sat cross-legged on the bed. "I woke up early, so I've been meditating. Kamarile gave me some exercises to help me recover as well as become a better Dreamwalker."

"Always wise to follow Kamarile Sedai's advice," Elan said with a faint smile. She'd helped him come to terms with Haile's death, and with the fact that most of his family would almost certainly die before him-as indeed nearly all of them had. The underlying malaise had never lifted, no matter what counsel she gave or what medication she prescribed, but he'd learned to deal with that as well, however imperfectly.

"Do you really think we're ready for this, Elan?" It wasn't often that anyone saw Mierin uncertain.

"We are as ready as it is possible to be, Mierin. I apologize if that's insufficiently reassuring. As it is, I worry that we've taken too long."

"I know." Mierin's eyes looked unfocused for a moment. "I had horrible dreams last night. Not ordinary nightmares-I can handle those. It...it promised me anything I wanted. All I had to do was set it free."

"It?"

"Something in shadow. I couldn't see clearly. I don't believe in the Creator, Elan, but if I did, whatever was making the promises would be its opposite. And I know...I know that we have no idea what's really on the other side of the Bore...but I think it's malevolent. The things that have been happening...they're not accidents."

Elan raised an eyebrow. "You believe that? For certain?"

Mierin studied her long fingers. "I think it. I feel it. I know that I can't prove it. So I try to tell myself that I'm not being a good scientist. But I feel it anyway." In one swift flowing movement, she leapt from the bed. "Get Barid, Mael, and Lews up. It's time to get this done."

"If you're certain." Elan hoped his expression wasn't betraying how troubled her dreams left him. Something similar nagged at his memory.

"Now," she said, flinging open the door. "Before it figures out my price."

*****

Lews tapped on the dreamspike's control panel. "Three...seven...eight...four...all right, here we go." He twisted it, feeling space wrinkle as he did, then flung his arms wide. The air rotated, leaving an all-but-invisible Gateway behind. "Elan, Mael-you have a g..." Then he saw what the rest of them were seeing. "Light burn me whole."

Beyond the Gateway should have been the magma pool. Should have been. In its place was a lake of utter blackness. It shifted restlessly, a visible flicker of darkness, as if something strained at a taut curtain. He shifted his eyes to the sky and saw only tormented, writhing clouds, red and black and silver as if space itself were bleeding. Lews tore his eyes away, and the clouds gave way to the Unseen World's normal gray-blue at once. But as he looked back, the sky seemed to shift gradually, as if the clouds were just over to the side. The pool itself held steady wherever he looked, even if he could see it only from the corner of his eye.

He glanced back at Elan and his son. "You two get in there, before I jump in myself and start trying to wrench that thing closed. It...I...that thing isn't just some dimensional anomaly, Elan."

"I see that," Elan said softly. "I see it well. Son?"

Together they stepped through into the nightmare.

Barid tried to stroll casually around the Gateway. Lews had lost his cool head, so it was important he keep his. Inside he was shaking. "Too bad we never tried to just look at it," he muttered. "We'd have seen right away what it was."

"Appearances don't matter," Mierin said icily. "It could be nothing more than the normal seeming of a dimensional breach in the Unseen World."

He took her hand. "Don't fool yourself, Mierin. I know you opened it-"

"I know it too!" She pulled away, stepping perilously close to the lava pool. "I'm not denying it's dangerous, or that I'm afraid of it. I'm not even denying that I've been dreaming about awful things on the other side. I'm just saying that, objectively, we have no call to conclude it's 'eeevil'. It's a phenomenon. That's all."

Barid opened himself to the Source. "One we have to close."

"Yes," Mierin said. She reached through him and seized saidin. She would only hold it, draw on it to strengthen her flows of saidar. That was the part that had Barid worried. Shouldn't this side perhaps use pure saidar, and the other...well, no, the other side still wouldn't be able to link. Something seemed asymmetrical to him, though. It was as close as they could get without more help, he supposed. "I opened it, and now it's my duty to close it."

*****

"It seems to eat light," Mael said quietly. "'Black' doesn't even come close. I wonder if it's related to Skimspace." Now that they were actually in the Unseen World, the effect seemed to have grown stronger. The air itself quivered and pulsed around them.

Elan chuckled faintly. "You always were good at that, Mael."

"What?"

"Laughing-and making me laugh-in the face of danger and despair. Like your mother." Mael had never really known her. She'd died just months after his birth.

"It's not a talent that sees much use these days," Mael said after a moment.

"And hopefully never will, son." Elan turned his eyes toward the Bore. "But whenever we need it, you have it." He began to weave. "Match your web with mine, the way we sketched it out. Extend it in through the gaps and overlap at the edges."

Mael did so. It felt like trying to weave a buffer over linked women. That was nearly impossible, unless they were very weak individually, or you had an _angreal_. The darkness seemed to brighten by the faintest amount as the web passed between them and it, as if overlaid by the glowing lava.

*****

"I suppose you're sorry for ignoring me now, Lews," said Mierin. The Power filled her till she swam in an ocean of joy. She wanted to drop to the ground and roll in that ocean. Instead she drew more, channeling it into the pseudo-buffer she was tightening over the rift.

Lews blinked and glared at her. She hadn't meant to upset him. It was the massive flow of the Power through her, the distance from ordinary feeling and thought. "It was a mistake," he admitted roughly.

"I didn't mean any offense," she said hastily. "I just...I wish we'd figured this out sooner. Don't you?"

Lews nodded. He wasn't feeling what she and Barid were feeling, nor presumably what Mael and his father were. He blinked and glanced around the Gateway. "Mael, Elan, a little to the left. You guys are drifting." His face moved back into view. "Sorry. Yes, I should've listened. I just thought you wanted to get back together."

"Well, I would have." Didn't he remember how well they worked together? How they'd crafted wonders? How they'd made love while linked, so that each felt the pleasure of the other and knew every move the other desired? How they'd hashed out A New Theory of the One Power, that he'd given her leave to publish on her own just after the split?

"That's never going to happen, Mierin. I've enjoyed working with you again the last few days, but that's all. Er...hang on. You need to shift the web forward a bit. No, further ahead of you and Barid! Got it." He bobbed his head around the edge of the Gateway a few times. "Okay, you're matching up again. Look, Mierin, the things you believe in...they're interesting, and they could make the world a better place in the long run. I wish the Bore experiment had worked out, for instance. One day humanity will be more and better than it is now, and I think you'll play a part in it. That doesn't mean you have likable motives, or that you're easy to disagree with even when I think you're wrong."

She lifted one eyebrow. Keep calm. Keep very calm. "What have I been wrong about, Lews Therin, other than the Bore, which we never discussed?"

"There was the hand-in-glove phenomenon, where you thought you could manipulate saidin indirectly without linking. There was the linking-without-linking thing. You nearly put me in a coma, Mierin! You can't just fiddle around randomly in people's brains."

She sniffed at him. "It was not random. It should have created a permanent...bond between us. I didn't mean to do that to your amygdala." One thread of Spirit in the wrong place, and he never wanted to try anything again. Fool man! "You can't advance knowledge without experimentation, Lews."

"You tried to unravel a web! You could have destroyed a city doing something like that!"

"There's no theoretical reason it couldn't be done. It's a skill to be mastered, and I did it in _Tel'aran'rhiod_ where there was no one else around." All right, she was getting a little bit heated now. "I never thought I'd call you an Incastar, Lews, but that's how you're acting. You're being a luddite."

Lews seemed distracted momentarily by the Gateway. "Oh...um, no problem, never mind." He focused on her again. "You turned me into a woman in the Unseen World."

Mierin rolled her eyes at that. "Like you've never experimented in _Tel'aran'rhiod_? Light above, Lews, I wanted to see what it was like to kiss you that way!" Well, more than kiss, but that first.

"But you didn't ask! I didn't particularly enjoy it, and while I don't think I'd have enjoyed it even if you did ask, you couldn't be bothered to check with me first!"

"Excuse me," Barid interrupted, "but is this the proper time to have a lover's quarrel? Just asking, considering I can't weave so much as a candlelight ball over here."

"Next time we meet in _Tel'aran'rhiod_ ," Lews growled, "I'm turning you into a man, Mierin. We'll see how you like that. What? Oh, sorry, Mael. We're having some relationship issues over here. No, it's not like that! Bloody ashes..." He looked at the ground sheepishly for a few moments. "Oh, and, um...sorry, Barid. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all."

"No harm done yet," Barid said, breathing heavily. "Let's try and keep our minds on what we're doing from here on out, though."

"Yes," Mierin agreed. She could feel his alarm. He probably had a point. "Let's."

*****

"Are they always like that?" Mael asked.

Elan inhaled as deeply as he could before letting it out again. "More often than not. And yet somehow they work very well together..." He glanced at the Gateway and raised his voice. "...so long as they're not doing anything important at the time!"

"You and Mother were never like that, were you?"

Elan tried not to sigh. "We were impulsive children, Mael, but no, not often. Generally we tried to agree on what we were doing before we started." He watched the black lake turn slowly into red lava. "Lews and Mierin were very much in love, but I can't remember a time when they didn't strike sparks just by being around each other. They each think the other is irresponsible, for one thing. And frequently, they each have a point."

Mael wove a tricky bit carefully, beginning to pull the web tight. "I see he thinks she's obsessed with power."

"And she is," Elan observed. "Mierin is fixated on the idea that we are on the edge of surpassing the boundaries of humanity, if only we make the right choices. I've heard her argue that if there is a Creator, he is not the omnipotent deity most people believe in, but merely an alien being who wants to see us fail because it entertains him. And she hopes to bring an end to that." The distorted sky was fading back to normality. "I'd call that a laudable motive, in its way. Mierin, at her best, wants power for everyone-not just herself. She does enjoy it too much, though. Still, you haven't seen what Lews is capable of."

"She called him an Incastar. I hadn't gotten that vibe from him."

Elan tried and failed not to laugh out loud. "Lews is no opponent of science and technology. That's part of Mierin's fixation. What he is is reckless. What she does with new ideas, he does with the same old ones. He'll leap into a burning building trying to be a hero and get in the firemen's way-not to mention he'll have forgotten he could just use a weave and leech out the heat. He's too hands-on, and too brave by half. Again, that doesn't make him any less of a good man."

The ground shuddered abruptly. From the Gateway, he faintly heard Barid begin cursing. "Lews! What's going on out there?" The lava pool faded back into a black abyss.

"We're drifting out of alignment! You've got to pull the web up and diagonally backward! Otherwise-"

The Gateway cracked like a pane of glass.

*****

"Lews! You idiot! What did you do?"

Lews Therin struggled to his feet. He'd never seen a Gateway behave like that. It wasn't a physical object, after all, so much as a kind of confined wormhole. Yet there it hung, cracks spiderwebbed across its surface. He touched a hand to it and had to yank it back, bleeding.

"If you'd stopped distracting me..."

Barid hauled him up by the shirt collar. "This is no time for arguing about who's at fault! You either, Mierin!" He shook a fist at her. "You two have been shouting about your stupid breakup while you should have been _trying to save the world_ , and I told myself I couldn't do anything because you had the Power, Mierin, but so help me if you don't give me control of the ring this instant I swear I will break your pretty little nose!"

Mierin's eyes went wide, and evidently she passed him the circle, because his face went taut with even greater strain. " _Tsag!_ It's bad, Lews, it's really bad. I'm not even sure Elan didn't underestimate what could go wrong. The...the pressure from the other side...it may be making things worse. Look!"

The broken pieces of the Gateway were destabilizing further, changing shape from shards into circles-no, not even that. Into _spheres_. And the Gateway itself was becoming a set of orbiting mini-gates. Lews had never seen anything remotely like it before. "What in the names of the Light and chaos-?"

"Light help us," Barid muttered. "It's one of those Bore radiation events. It's happening right here, right now. At the epicenter of the whole thing."

"I didn't think to calculate that in," Mierin moaned. "It's been happening worldwide. I thought the odds at this one particular spot...never mind that, Barid, we have to release the web!"

"And just let this go? Are you out of your mind?" Sweat trickled down Barid's face. "We have to close it before it rips wide open!"

"You saw the math, Barid! We can't close it now! The best we can do is let it relieve the pressure! Lews! Help me make him see sense!" A ball of warped space flung outward from the destabilized Gateway, missing Mierin by inches. It passed through a column of the hotel. Where it had been, the marble churned for a moment, rippling, distorting, turning inside out.

Lews considered himself a smart man-even a brilliant one, if he put false humility aside-but he was out of his element here. "What if Elan and Mael don't let it go?"

"Then the world goes boom, Lews! But Elan knows better. You have to trust that he knows what he's doing!"

It was a chance they had to take. "Barid. Let the web go. If she's wrong, at least we won't be around to find out."

"But Lews..."

"Let it go!"

He _felt_ the Gateway implode, dragging him toward it. But only by a foot or so. The link to Tel'aran'rhiod was gone.

And Elan and Mael were trapped on the other side.

*****

Elan clung to his son's arm and lurched forward, fighting with all his strength to keep going. The webs were gone. The collapse should have been prevented. But...

Light trails flickering from every object he could see. A force like a weight dragging them backwards. Distorted colors. Garbled sounds. The sun, never visible in the Unseen World, loomed large in the sky. Animals screamed.

"Father!"

"I have you, Mael! I'm not going to let you go!" Elan let himself fall forward, catching the ground with his free hand. No... _think about it_...with an additional pair of hands that grew from his sides, fingers digging into the ground. Even that seemed wrong-he needed to simply believe himself immovable-but the chaos made that kind of concentration impossible. With his normal hands he struggled to pull Mael forward over him. He glanced back.

The pool of blackness had become a sphere, distorting everything around it. No simple black hole, at least-dark fire radiated from it like rays of sunlight. Although Elan was sure he'd managed to struggle forward a few paces, the singularity seemed not to have gotten any further away. And Mael's feet...

Mael's feet were inside the singularity.

Of course, if it were a true, natural black hole, they'd both have been turned into yarn by now. It wasn't what it appeared to be at all. In fact...it wasn't there. It wasn't. It was not real. This was a dream, and the singularity...

...was unaltered. It must reflect some reality far stronger than his will.

Elan still held saidin. He wove a Gateway...and it melted away into nothing. The dreamspike was still active. _Try again._ He channeled Earth, making ripples to carry him forward. That worked. But the distortion...Mael was still just as trapped, and seemingly no further away from the singularity than they had been.

"Father, you have to let go!"

"Never!" Not this time. Mael would live. No man should outlive his own children. Elan channeled Fire and Spirit and Earth at the singularity and watched the weaves vanish inside. Nothing changed. But something about Mael...

It was as they had discussed. The singularity was no mere physical force. It was drawing his son's soul out of his body. If it wasn't stopped, it would take Elan next, followed by whatever dreamers had the misfortune to be nearby...and then everyone in the world, one by one.

He couldn't let that happen. He was a Servant of All. And a father.

Elan channeled Fire and Earth. He wove a blade from it, a blade that would cut cleanly through bone and cauterize any wound it made. The Oneness quaked in time with the shaking earth.

With it, he severed Mael's legs below the knee.

Not enough. Not nearly enough. He could still feel his son's life force being sapped away. He made the vacuole-sealing weave again. If he set it properly this time he could, at the very least, seal over the additional damage that had been done here.

It didn't close. It couldn't close.

His son was in the way.

The two of them were moving forward now. The physical link to the warp had been severed. Mael's soul...that was still caught fast. As long as he was there, he prevented Elan from sealing the damaged rift.

"Father...I know...what has to happen. Let...me go..."

"NO!"

Gathering all his knowledge, all his imagination, and all his willpower, Elan wove again.

*****

Lews twisted at the dreamspike again, but it was locked into place. Its components seemed to have partially melted, fusing it closed. With a snarl, he raised it over his head and flung it into the lava pool.

Barid's Gateway sprang open. "Good! Move, move!"

They leapt through, Lews first. He felt ready for anything.

The damaged Bore had become a sphere that made blackness look light by comparison. The very stuff of _Tel'aran'rhiod_ was being ripped to pieces by the rift and sucked inside. And a few paces away, Elan knelt over the body of his son, surrounded by a web of the Power that made the vacuole-sealing web look like cat's-cradle.

Elan looked up at them, his eyes aflame. " _HELP ME!_ "

"Light preserve us, what's he _doing_?" Mierin clawed her way across the ground. "Elan, link with me. Let me at least see what you're doing."

"It's not Healing," Lews observed. Elan had never been more than passable at Healing. Besides, if what they had discussed was happening to Mael, Healing would be useless. The web was mostly Spirit, with hints of Water and Air mixed in. Beyond that...well, he'd seen molecular circuitry that looked less complex.

"Elan, stop!" Mierin sputtered. "Elan, this is madness! You can't...it's impossible!" Her eyes wide, she stared back at Lews and Barid. "He's trying to copy his son's soul. To take everything that makes him...him and rewrite it onto the raw stuff of dreams. I thought I knew this place. I'd never even imagined..." She broke off. "Barid, Lews...he can't do it. Nobody could do this! Not even Kamarile Sedai could make a duplicate like that, and she couldn't write it onto raw soulstuff if she did."

Elan seized her by the wrist. "I can! I can and I will, but you have to _help me_!"

"Elan, stop it this instant! What's happening to your son is going to happen to the whole world if we don't lock this down now!"

Elan moaned and wove something else from Spirit and a hint of Fire. The world _bent_ , and the flow of substance into the rift slowed visibly. "He's bending time itself," Barid said, wide-eyed. "I'd have thought that was impossible."

He wove again. To Lews' eyes, a glow sprang up around him. "He's bending chance like a _ta'veren_. Elan, you have to stop."

Between gritted teeth, Elan muttered, "Here everything is possible. I will not give up. I won't!" More weaves filled the air. Lews glanced from Barid to Mierin, but they looked as baffled as he.

Mierin slapped Elan across the face, once, twice, three times. "I think he's gone mad, Lews. I think he's gone mad. I can't even begin to follow what he's doing now, but it's all aimed at saving his son. I wish you could, Elan, I truly do, but you _can't_. It's too late!"

A wedge of white fire leaped from one of Elan's webs, fire so hot that Lews felt as if he'd been singed standing a pace away. It sliced through the front wall of the Denigablis, or rather its reflection. The gap flickered in and out of existence fitfully. Elan's eyes went wide, as if this had startled him, and Lews chose his moment. He pictured Elan stunned, unable to react, and held him that way while he slammed a buffer between him and the Source. The link between Elan and the Power stretched and flattened, too powerful to be broken so easily, but Lews kept up the pressure until Elan's link frayed and finally tore loose. "Seal the breach! Seal it now!" Mierin stumbled off to one side, disoriented from losing the ring, but Barid lashed out with the vacuole-pinching weave.

A crystalline barrier formed across the surface of the singularity. The roaring in Lews' ears ceased. The black sphere seemed to subside and flatten against the ground. In a few moments it was quiescent again. Barid stood there with gritted teeth and a fixed stare. "I think you got it," Lews said softly, and Barid blinked and turned away, looking down.

Mierin studied the black rift. "It's back to its previous state...more or less. There's been some further damage to space-time, though. I'm concerned that it's going to keep growing."

"But it's not going to eat any more souls?" Barid asked, leaning over Elan. "Lews, you didn't sever him, did you?"

"No," Mierin said softly, and Lews echoed her.

"No, I don't think I did. I almost didn't get him shielded at all. If he'd tried to fight, I'd have lost him." Elan lay on his back, eyes staring at nothing, but his chest rose and fell. "Barid, he's not...?"

"His soul is still in him," Barid answered. "As to how intact it is..." He glanced over at Mael's inert body. "Nobody can watch their child die and be all right afterwards. And you know Elan."

"I know."

"We'll get him to Kamarile, and Mael to...well, the Hall of the Servants can take care of his body." Mierin looked at the ground. "I'm not really sure where we go from there."

*****

Elan lay on his back staring up at the intricately woven clouds. The effect was as hypnotic as it was nauseating. He had no desire to move ever again.

Elan Morin Tedronai would be reborn again in the next Age. The Wheel would turn, on and on forever. In seven Ages, he would live a life very much like this one.

But without his son. Mael Morin was gone forever, never to be born ever again.

Why get up?

I REGRET YOUR PAIN.

The voice echoed in his skull, almost loud enough to drown his grief, almost loud enough to drown him in agony.

"Who are you?"

YOU KNOW WHO I AM, ELAN. YOUR MASTER.

"I don't think that's right."

THE PATTERN WEAVES TOWARD AN ENDING, ELAN. YOU KNOW THIS.

"That doesn't make any sense. There are no beginnings and no endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time."

ALL THINGS DIE. LET ME SHOW YOU AN AGE TO COME.

A vision appeared in the tortured sky. Elan found himself rising into it.

He was standing in a village of scattered huts, thatched and tumbledown. He wore a loincloth and no more, like the handful of people who had gathered around him. Strangely, the town was centered on the grey column of a Portal Stone. Beyond the ragged village lay forest, its trees so tall they seemed to brush against the sky. No path led into them.

THIS IS THE WHIMPER AT THE END OF TIME, ELAN. IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN YOUR TASK TO FIGHT THIS.

"Where is everyone?" There couldn't be more than a hundred people in the whole village, and Elan could see only about a dozen in the dirt paths.

GONE. THE WHEEL TURNS FOR ETERNITY, ELAN, BUT YOU HAVE SEEN THAT SOULS CAN DIE. THE LOGIC IS INESCAPABLE. WHETHER A HUNDRED SOULS DIE IN AN AGE, OR ONLY ONE, OVER THE SPAN OF ETERNITY ALL SOULS MUST DIE. HUMANITY DRAWS TOGETHER HERE, AT THE PORTAL STONES, TRYING TO GATHER THE LAST FEW PEOPLE FROM ALL SURVIVING WORLDS. TRYING TO MAINTAIN THEIR POPULATION AT A SUSTAINABLE LEVEL.

EVENTUALLY THE NUMBER OF SOULS MUST DROP SO LOW THAT HUMANITY'S GENE POOL IS TOO SHALLOW FOR SURVIVAL. AND THEN...

A woman carried an infant past Elan. The child tried to suckle at her breast, but its deformed mouth prevented it from nursing properly.

ALL WILL DIE, ELAN. WITHOUT POINT. WITHOUT REASON. EVEN THE MEANINGLESS TURN OF ENDLESS AGES MUST END HERE. AND WHEN IT DOES, YOU HAVE FAILED.

"I don't understand what you want me to do." The vision faded slowly, leaving him lying on hot rock. "If what you say is true, nothing can prevent this from happening eventually."

YOU CAN GIVE THE DEATH OF THE GREAT SERPENT MEANING, ELAN. YOU HAVE SERVED ME TO THIS END FOR AGE AFTER AGE. BUT YOU OFTEN RESIST, BECAUSE AT FIRST YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND. SO THE PATTERN FORCES YOU TO YOUR WORK. THOSE YOU LOVE DIE, NOT AT MY HAND, BUT BECAUSE THE PATTERN WILLS IT.

YOU CAN GIVE THEM AN ENEMY TO FIGHT. YOU CAN GIVE THEM GLORIOUS BATTLE. THEY CAN DIE, NOT STARVING AND COLD AND HELPLESS, BUT IN THE CONFIDENCE THAT THEY STAND FOR GOOD AGAINST EVIL, DOWN TO THE LAST HUMAN ALIVE.

MY ADVERSARY WILL OPPOSE YOU. "GOOD" PEOPLE WILL RALLY AROUND HIM. "EVIL" PEOPLE WILL RALLY TO YOU. BUT YOU KNOW THAT THERE IS NO "GOOD" AND NO "EVIL". ONLY A MEANINGFUL DEATH...OR A MEANINGLESS ONE.

"How do I do this?" Elan's voice was the merest ghost of a whisper. He had no desire to get up. He had no desire to fight for good or for evil. He wanted only to lie here and rest.

TAKE MY HAND, ELAN. The image of a hand formed in the air above him, a hand formed from obsidian shadows. I WILL HELP YOU. I WILL STRENGTHEN YOU TO YOUR TASK.

AND I PROMISE, ELAN. I WILL GIVE YOU THE ETERNAL REST YOU CRAVE. LIKE ALL MEN.

Elan's hand lifted, almost seeming to act without his will. His fingers curled slowly around the fingers of Shadow. "I...I will do what you ask. Thank you."


	19. Spiral

"He's coming around, I think."

Kamarile turned and leaned over Elan's bed. Her therapeutic relationship with Nemene was frequently contentious, but on the level of shared work, they managed rather smoothly. She wasn't sure if there was any level on which Nemene truly cared about her patients, but Nemene did seem to have a professional pride in her work, and she viewed Elan as sufficiently important to deserve treatment without excessive suffering. Kamarile supposed that was as much as one could expect from her.

Elan opened his eyes just a crack.

"You are in the Hall of the Servants in Paaren Disen," Nemene said calmly. "You have been here about six days, mostly unconscious. Do you recall what happened?"

When Elan didn't respond, Kamarile added, "Lews, Mierin, and Barid brought you in." Elan flinched and seemed to snarl under his breath. Well, he had the right. "For whatever it's worth, Elan, they seemed terribly upset and guiltridden over...what happened."

Elan inhaled deeply and closed his eyes for a moment. When he reopened them, he seemed calmer. "It could not have been helped. Mael's fate was my fault and no one else's." He sounded thoroughly resigned, which made Kamarile suspicious. No one finished grieving that quickly, especially from a loss that rendered them essentially catatonic. "The Bore?"

"Still open," Nemene said, "but not much worse than before. Perhaps you gained some insight on it?"

"Not the rift itself," Elan said, "but beyond it is an entity of great power and wisdom, sealed away Ages ago by the foolish and envious. It means no harm to us, but its intentions were misunderstood."

Kamarile blinked. Was he delusional? A mind could be easily unhinged by what Elan had experienced. "Perhaps you would let me talk with this entity," she suggested.

Elan nodded faintly. "I have no doubt it would appreciate conversing with both of you."

"I find myself oddly skeptical of your tale," Nemene said tactlessly. "I don't suppose you can offer any more details?"

"I'm sure it can give you all the details you desire," Elan said with a careless toss of his hand. "Please, by all means, come discuss the matter with it."

Kamarile beckoned Nemene and stepped aside out of the room. Nemene gave her a cool glance, nodded curly to Elan, and followed. "I can't say that I've encountered this particular delusion before," Kamarile observed.

"You are quite certain that it is a delusion?" Nemene asked, surprisingly. Kamarile nodded. "Good," Nemene said. "I should hope that you weren't taken in by such drivel, even if you do believe in a Creator."

"The Creator certainly couldn't be sealed away by any mere human force," Kamarile stated. Nemene's atheism was well-known among her acquaintances, though she generally didn't discuss it in public. Most citizens found atheism a suspicious oddity. Transphysicists had confirmed centuries ago that the universe's basic laws were most likely engineered, though there were still a wide variety of perspectives on the Creator's nature, even his, her, or their number. Nemene was the only scientifically literate person Kamarile knew who contended that transphysics had been fooled by an odd turn of cosmological chance.

Indeed, Nemene immediately spoke up. "And here I was concerned that you were multiplying unnecessary entities. One being of infinite power is merely intrinsically silly. Two is outright absurd. They would promptly come into conflict and waste eternity locked in combat."

Kamarile shrugged. "In case you missed it under your load of preconcieved ideas, Elan never said it was a deity like the classical conception of the Creator. It could be anything from an alien being to an artificial sapient created in the Fifth Age. Even a very powerful channeler would technically fit the parameters of his description."

"So you plan to go investigate his claim?"

"Not I. Even if I took it seriously, my current case load is prohibitive."

"Good, Kamarile. There's hope for you yet."

*****

"You realize this is madness, Letan."

"A Foretelling is a Foretelling, Eval. It said outright that 'he' would try to prevent us from going. The best way to prevail over a completely unknown enemy is not to let him find out you're there. Get your outfit on."

Eval struggled with the fancloth pants, which seemed to be just a bit too large. "This can't be what fancloth was intended for."

"Not precisely," Letan said. "You're the historian. Don't you know where it came from?"

"Out of my field," Eval said. "I know Tel Janin was given his third name for inventing the stuff three hundred odd years ago, but not why. He's never used it for dueling; that's illegal."

"Not for hunting, though. It's used for stalking prey in the Great Southern Preserve. Tel Janin used it to hunt teska deer. They're very skittish and very large." Eval stared at her. "I looked it up."

"In preparation to pull a fantastic."

"What?"

"Break into a government space facility. I guess the expression's a little archaic. You realize that even if we come back with the Yaller Horn, we'll most likely be arrested."

"Worth it. Oh, I forgot. Don't worry, I'll pretend I took you hostage, Eval." She smirked openly at him. "Seriously, it's a Foretelling about one of the most important artifacts of human history. It must be about something momentous. I'd expect you to jump at the opportunity."

She had him there.

*****

Joar Addam Nessossin tried to stop shaking. It was absurd to be so frightened of a thing he'd done a thousand times before. Only, he hadn't, really. No one had. It wasn't just that his band was shorthanded. He could compensate for that, though the means he was going to use was part of the problem. No, it was the sort of music he was about to unveil in public that was making him tremble.

Everyone knew what a Nessossin sound-sculpture was like. Elegant, graceful, filled with a single pristine emotion. Exactly as tradition had held for longer than he'd been alive. And now he was going to defy all that, in an act that could garner him greater fame than any musician he'd ever heard of...or get him torn to pieces by the critics.

The curtains began to move, and he seized saidin, flinging them open much faster than the mechanism could have done. He strode out onto the stage, flanked by eruptions of colored light and rumbling sound. His fellow musicians were with him...he thought. There was no way to see them amidst the fading afterimages.

Echoes still lingering in the air, Joar began to play...nothing. Strumming the air with the Power alone, he began to sing.

_web of fate_

_binds us fast_

_matrices_

_of unimaginable strength_

_reason obligates_

_tradition clings_

_tying us down_

The others began to sing in chorus, softly at first but building to a crescendo:

_break it break it Break it Break It! BREAK IT BREAK IT BREAK IT!_

And he burst into the tune he realized suddenly that he had been longing to sing since he was a child, since he had understood that his mother and his managers and even his colleagues would never let him free of the expectations they'd set for him:

_Give in to the impulse!_

_Release the power in your soul!_

_Give in to the impulse!_

_You're human when you're out of control!_

It was club music. The intelligentsia scorned it. The public refused to acknowledge it. The poor danced to it openly and were sneered at. But it was the pulse, the beat, the rhythm. And now it was not only him who sang it, not only his band. Saidin sang it with him.

_wheel turns_

_fire burns_

_in your veins_

_the blood reigns_

_pain and passion_

_growth is living_

_don't let them_

_hold you back_

The crowd stood there, baffled, stunned. And before their eyes Joar began to dance, simple steps at first, ever mindful of the cameras, growing more and more complex. The Power danced within him. The Power kept him in step. He had them transfixed, no less certainly than if he had wrapped them in bands of solid Air.

And then they too began to move. Tiny pockets of the crowd began to move along with him, carried by the music. They rose to their feet in spreading waves, the crowd shaking like a single vast organism shivering, like a field of anemones moving in and yet against the currents. Only a few holdouts in fancy suits remained, and as he went on these began scowling disgustedly and heading for the exits.

_Give in to the impulse!_

_Give in to the beast from which you sprang!_

_Give in to the impulse!_

_Unleash the animal in your brain!_

Now they were gone. Now the crowd was his, all his. They were one being, him and the band and the audience, all together now, all one. Joar was astonished only by one thing: the barriers between him and Xaradu had fallen, and without even trying they had linked. Saidin and saidar throbbed through his veins together, pulse and counterpulse.

The music was all.

*****

Venus didn't look like he remembered it.

Of course it didn't. The terraforming webs had been released. The pocket of cool, breathable air had boiled away in moments. Eval and Letan held a bubble of atmosphere trapped with the Power, or they would have been eaten away by the acid winds before they could even suffocate. The ground glowed an incandescent red-not just the distant hills like before but right up to the edge of the ward they carried with them.

"Will they come after us?" he asked. "They have to know we used the _sa'angreal_."

Letan raised an eyebrow. "Look around you. We have about an hour even with the wards. Maybe a little longer inside the bunker. If we show up before then, we'll be arrested, but if not, they'll just figure we're dead. And they'll almost certainly be right. Let's get inside."

He could barely see beyond the edge of the web, even with saidin enhancing his vision. He stumbled forward, following Letan; she had a better idea of where the encampment had been. In the few paces it took to reach the mesa, Eval knew he would have been hopelessly lost alone.

The airlock door was already pockmarked with holes in the metal, but the ceramic inner surface had resisted the corrosion. Part of the wheel fell away as Letan turned it. "No zombies so far," she said quietly. "Of course, I don't see how they could've lasted out here. Inside may be another matter."

Inside, though, the bunker was still. The stone walls felt claustrophobic, but they still held stale but breathable air. Nothing moved. The walking dead he had cut down were gone, though saidar illuminated piles of dust where they had fallen. _We really are children_ , Eval mused. _This place lasted thousands of years. The door we carved into it will destroy it in months._ "It has to be the gate room," he said quietly. This place seemed to call for quiet. "I don't know if it's really a gate, but it's the biggest mystery here."

"What do you plan to do with it? We studied it for three weeks before bringing you in." A muscle beneath Letan's eye throbbed nervously. "We may have an hour inside, maybe even two, but not much longer."

"Did you probe it with the Power?"

"Cautiously. No one here could read it. What if we triggered something? We still don't know that we didn't set off a trap that made those things appear."

"If you did, maybe it's sprung and won't reset." Eval shook his head. "I don't think that's what happened. But even if we bring down twice that number of walking dead on our heads, the only way to figure out what it does in that amount of time is to be reckless."

"Would you believe that's why Detosh wanted you on the project?" Letan smiled faintly as she shoved open the door to the gate room. "He thought you'd barge in and find the answer. And maybe die in the process, but at least you'd get your third name. Heh."

"Well, let's hope he was wrong about the dying part." Eval laid a hand on the bronze rectangle-was it bronze, or something else?-and closed his eyes. The Power seeped inside, saidin from him, saidar from Letan. No one really understood how the One Power seemed to carry resonances from the past, any more than they understood how it could read the future. The Power flowed through into the microstructure of the object. The gate? Maybe. "I read a chapter of _A New Theory of the One Power_ while you were out cold," he said, trying to make conversation. "The one on Foretellings."

"Mierin's book? I've never read it. It sounded pretentious."

"It is. But still interesting." The metal had a fine fractal structure, a lattice that no proper molecules could follow. "She suggested that Foretelling, and related minor abilities like sensing the weather, aren't really webs at all. She said previous studies on the subject had forgotten what the Power is, at its base: the force that drives time. Someone who Foretells is dipping into the current, or standing athwart it, and looking forward or back. That's why we keep failing at trying to do it on purpose. We need a meditative approach, not mathematical experiments with different ways of weav-Yow!" A crack shivered through the metal, bisecting it from top to bottom.

"Well, it is a gate." Letan sounded the tiniest bit disappointed. Beyond the doorway-now open-was merely a spiraling stone ramp. "I was hoping for something fancier. Mierin could be right. That's a little like how Foretelling feels, I think." She peered up the ramp, trying to see what lay above.

"Don't underestimate the value of archaeology," Eval reminded her. "We're looking for an artifact, after all. I'm not even sure the Horn is properly a _ter'angreal_. If it is what it's supposed to be, I'm not sure how it could ever have been made. Was there a First Hero? What was the world like before that? Even if your prophecy didn't imply there was a crisis coming, the Horn's a treasure trove of information. And think what the dead it summons must remember."

"You're assuming they don't come back as zombies," Letan muttered, climbing over the console and onto the ramp.

"I guess that would be effective," he agreed, "and even though that's not how the legends describe it, legends are legends after all." The ramp and walls were smooth as marble, though they looked more like limestone to his eye. "How high is the mesa, anyway?"

Letan hesitated. "Maybe fifteen feet."

"There couldn't be more than two floors, then, even with the ceilings so low. Can you tell how much further we've got?" _Could_ that be what had made the zombies? The Yaller Horn itself? But then how had it been triggered?

"I...no, but we ought to be there by now. Maybe there's a little rise in the mesa, or a second layer we didn't notice?" She must know better. He could see her shaking her head. "We'd have seen it a long time ago. But I don't feel anything in the Power that could be bending space here."

Then she gasped.

"Letan?" Eval nearly collided with her at the top of the ramp. "Light, it's beautiful."

Over her shoulder he could see what had stopped her. The little well opened up into a dome of some clear substance. The sky beyond was opaque, but tiny flickers of light twinkled on the dome where he suspected stars should have been, and just below the horizon level was a golden glow that surely must represent the sun.

"This isn't possible," she murmured. "We can't have missed this. Unless we made it emerge somehow, just now."

"I think it was always here," Eval said softly. "We weren't allowed to see it from the outside. Don't ask how. I don't know."

Together they stepped out under the dome, turning to see the rest of the room. On a pedestal behind them stood a thin stone rod, smoother still than the walls of the ramp well. At an impulse, he reached for it and found the surface slick, as if it were covered in a thin layer of oil.

"What is it? Eval, I feel...that thing is old. Older than anything else here, even."

He nodded. "It feels...it feels like forever. It might be a full cycle old, for all I know. Or older." He touched it with the Power.

"Eval, wait! You don't know-"

"I do know," Eval said. "Feel it. And remember what you said."

"Down the hall of mirrors? But..."

"Beyond space and time. Well, where can you go that's neither of those?" He let the Power suffuse it, hoping it worked the way he expected. There were no symbols, but perhaps it only went to one place. The Power seeped through it, filling the spaces. The Power seeped, then flooded, almost beyond his control.

_Flicker._

_Flicker._

_Flicker flicker flickerflickerflickerflicker..._

Why wasn't anything changing? Could he be doing it wrong?

A faint light filled the room, and Letan seized him by the shoulder, pointing up. The sky had cleared, opening to the black void of space, and the stars...

The stars were _moving_.


	20. Beyond Forgotten Doors

Eval's eyes were glued to the sky.  There was little else he could do but watch.  The Portal Stone--if that was what it was--refused to let him reclaim the Power.  It was as if he had passed control of a ring.

"I don't understand.  How can the stars themselves change?"

"The stars move all the time, Eval."  Letan's gaze was fixed on the shifting sky as well.  Her expression held awe, but at least she sounded as though she comprehended what was happening.  "They move so slowly that not even Ogier or Aes Sedai see them change, but they move.  If we're moving between alternate universes, we must be on a course through worlds where the sun and other stars took different paths through the galaxy."

"But why?"

"Eval, look!"  Letan pointed to a bright speck of light that was growing ever brighter.  "We don't know of any way to travel through time.  We don't know of any way to cover interstellar distances at faster-than-light speeds, even by Traveling.  But think: what if you found a universe where the stars were closer?"

"Close enough to travel to?"  Eval squeezed his eyes shut for a moment.  The idea that the stars were too far ever to reach had been drilled into him since he was a boy.

"Not easily, but it could be done.  You've heard of the Seven Sisters?  Most  stars are born in clusters like that.  But the gravitational shifts of other passing stars tear the clusters apart.  See what's happening, Eval?"  Other stars were growing in brightness, drawing closer and closer.  "I think we're being sent to an alternate universe where the sun's birthing cluster was never broken up.  We could be near dozens or even hundreds of stars."

"Right," Eval said slowly, "but in another universe.  And wouldn't having all those stars nearby mess up the solar system?  Make it unstable, or maybe too hot?"

"Potentially," Letan allowed, her eyes sparkling with wonder.  "But we don't have to stay in the alternate universe.  Go there, travel to one of the other stars in the cluster, and then return to our universe--or go to any universe where there's a life-bearing world at that star!  We were wrong, Eval!  We were thinking too narrowly, do you see it?  There's a way to reach the stars after all, and someone, in some Age, did it!"

Eval rubbed at his temples.  "All right, I see your point.  And honestly, it sounds wonderful, even if it does make my head hurt to think of it."  Letan seemed to be right.  The sky was filling up with brilliant points of light.  A few even seemed like tiny, jeweled spheres in the night, though that might have been an illusion.  "But there's still a problem."

Letan blinked at him, trying to shake off the spell of starflight.  "I don't understand.  What could possibly be wrong?"

"We're from Earth, Letan.  We're only leaving to find a lost artifact.  We don't know anyone from another star system.  So if this is some kind of transit system built by a civilization from another Age...what happened to them?"

######

Xaradu stirred next to him, and Joar sat up slowly.

He'd been...There had been a concert, right?  What exactly had happened?  He'd played music with the Power, the crowd had responded...he and Xaradu had linked, which was something he'd always had trouble with....

Everything after that was a blur.  A good blur, but a blur.  And now he was on a couch at his home in Shorelle, next to his bandmate and occasional bedmate.

Struggling to his feet, he found his way to the holographic pad on the table and switched it on.  "News on my concert?"

"Concert.  Joar Addam Nessosin."  A video of the concert played for a few moments, the sound muted, before switching to a scene of the hall afterwards, spattered in food, drink, trash, and various items of clothing.  "Last night's Nessosin concert, which began as a great public success, abruptly ended in riots sometime after Nessosin demonstrated his rarely-used Talent for playing music directly with the One Power."

"I've never heard anything quite like it," spouted a man in a disheveled suit.  "The air itself just came alive with sound and light."

"Joar's the greatest musician I've ever heard!  To the Can Breat with sound-sculpture!"

"Come back, Joar!  I want your babies!"

Joar beamed.  All right, there had been some disorder afterwards.  The world could cope with a little less order in it.  What mattered was, people cared about his music again.

"Nessosin departed from the customary modern methods that have marked the greater part of his career to produce a complex variation on lower-class 'club music', which was apparently an incredible hit with the greater part of the audience.  However, after dancing late into the night, the party came to an end when he attempted to leave the stage.  The crowd erupted in a riot which spilled out onto the streets.  Although there are no reports of any serious injuries, several local businesses are demanding reparations for property damage."

"Property damage?"  Xaradu rubbed her eyes.  "What's going on, Joar?  I think I've lost a few hours."

"It's nothing," Joar said, reaching over to pat her on the shoulder.  "I can pay for it easily.  No one was hurt."

"Despite his vast popular success, music critics scourged the concert as 'a departure from all modern standards of good taste'."  An image appeared of grey-suited men and women filing out of the concert with looks of disgust on their faces.  He remembered that, vaguely.  "In particular, Joar's childhood sponsor, acclaimed composer Esune Lidaine Tiphereth, had this to say."

Esune was exactly as he remembered her from his early lessons--ruddy dark features and long, straight black hair--save for the faintest of lines that had appeared around her eyes.  He recalled that she'd encouraged his early attempts at making music with the Power without pushing him.  Her mouth was twisted wryly now.  "When I go to a Nessosin concert, I expect to hear delicate grace and elegant symphonic emotion.  What I received last night was the vulgar display of a pelvis-wiggling incubus.  Hopefully, my old student will recognize the response of the masses as socially disturbed and return to the path of reason.  i suspect he's merely been disillusioned, but he still has time to fulfill the potential he showed as a ch--"

Joar's hand stung abruptly, making him aware that he had brought it down hard on the holographic display unit.  "V-vulgar display?  A...a 'pelvis-wiggling incubus'?"

Xaradu put a hand on his shoulder.  "People always say that about innovators in music, Joar.  Some of the best musicians in history--"

"Esune Lidaine Tiphereth is one of the best musicians in history!" he shouted, his self-control shattered by his teacher's dismissive remarks.  "If she doesn't like my music, that means my music is worthless!  Don't you get it?"

"Worth is in the ear of the listener, Joar."  Xaradu had flinched from him for a moment, but she recovered at once.  "Yes, sometimes music can be popular and still be objectively bad, but even when that's true it still serves a need.  Any time something new comes around, though, you can bet the old guard will say it's 'just popular' and nothing more.  Have you ever listened to a recording of the first Ogier cultural exchange?"

"I...no, I never have."

"They're hard to find, because people like Esune Lidaine are embarrassed.  There was a certain segment of the population that fell all over themselves trying to imitate Ogiersong.  And believe me, it really was bad.  All the important musicians and critics started saying that Ogier music was 'intrinsically unsuited to human appreciation and response', by which they really meant that they didn't think much of the original, let alone the copied stuff."

Joar shook his head.  "It sounds like they had a point.  Human throats just aren't suited to traditional Ogier styles and vice versa."

"And yet you had Godan in the band."

"Well, hybrid styles have developed over the last two millennia--"

"They have--because people didn't give up.  The entire Dashain cultural movement is derived from that one moment in musical history, did you know that?  There never would have been a Way of the Leaf if people had just said, 'meh, the critics are right' and quit trying."

Joar blushed bright red.  "You make it sound like I could be some kind of Important Historical Figure who helps usher in a new Age.  I'm a musical prodigy, sweetie, and that's more than enough for me, but in the long run I'm not going to change the course of history."

Her smile seemed uncharacteristically serious.  Then she added a wink.  "Who says?"

######

Flicker.

The changes were coming slower now.

Flicker.

Their headlong rush down the hall of mirrors was coming to an end.

One last fitful flicker.

The sky was full of brilliant gems--mostly rubies, but here and there a yellow diamond sparkled among them.

"End of the line," Eval said.  "So where's the Yaller Horn?  Or the heartstone ring, whatever that was?"

"I don't know," Letan admitted, frowning.  "Let's look around, though.  We're in another universe entirely.  They might not be in this chamber at all.  For that matter, what did I mean, 'sign of the wolf'?'

"Maybe there's a control panel of some kind?  There are scores of stars out there.  Maybe we're supposed to go to one of them.  Why hide the Horn here on an alternate Venus when there's all that other space out there?"  He waved his hand vaguely.

Letan peered down the ramp well.  "There's the console down there.  We wondered what it was for.  It never seemed to have anything to do with the gate itself, no matter what we did with it."  She took a step.  "I didn't fall out of this universe or anything.  We should take a look."

Eval followed her nervously.  Explorers through the Portal Stones had found all sorts of dangers, from three-eyed alien predators to hazardous atmospheres to altered natural laws.  Admittedly, they were already on Venus, which was almost as hazardous an environment as humans could find.

The console seemed unchanged.  In fact, he realized, it was unchanged.  The cracked-open door indicated that they'd brought this entire complex along with them.  No wonder the Stone hadn't let them go.  By maintaining its link to their channeled Power, it ensured that they didn't get lost somewhere along the way, stranded on a toxic or airless world.  Of course, it could have killed them itself if they hadn't been up to the strain for that extended period.

He took a deep breath.  "Here's where it gets messy," he muttered.  "This cuneiform writing isn't something that I've deciphered much of.  I don't have a clue what the 'sign of the wolf' is.  If we hit the wrong button, I could strand us here or kill us outright."

Letan absently scratched her left ear.  "Is there a constellation that's considered to look like a wolf?  I mean, historically speaking?"

After a moment's thought, Eval shook his head.  "Constellations change too greatly from culture to culture, though interestingly enough they tend to describe the same or similar groupings of stars.  One culture's 'Elephant' is another's 'Magic Sword'.  I don't see how it could be that, not if we're supposed to figure out what button to press from it after twelve thousand years."  He stared at the console and suddenly had an intuition.  "We're a step ahead of ourselves, though."

"How do you mean?"

"I was in tech support when I was a student.  My family's pretty low-class, so I took a side job for a little extra cash.  You know what the oldest joke in tech support is?  Customer demands to know why their device doesn't do anything no matter what button they hit.  After going over a couple of fairly obvious problems, the assistant backs up a step and asks, 'It's not connected to the power source, is it?'  Believe it or not, jokes are what got me into historical studies.  That one predates this entire Age.  Jokes may well be the oldest cultural phenomenon in existence, and I wouldn't be surprised if that includes this complex."

Letan frowned at him.  "Eval, we've punched every button at least once.  If we have to hit the right combination just to power it up...  Oh."  With a chuckle, she dropped to her hands and knees.  "We can't power it up, because it's not just turned off.  It's disconnected entirely."

"Hunt for a cable.  Wireless power sources are possible, but we know that at least some part of the equipment is running or the stellar display wouldn't have been active in the other room, and a wireless source would likely run everything at once."  

His skin began to tingle faintly.  "Found it.  The cord had corroded through.  I've reconnected it, if it's electrical."  She patted an inch or so of slender plastic that vanished into the wall.  "Good thinking.  In fiction, ancient technology nearly always just works, no matter how old it is."

"And yet there's a minimum of two Ages separating us.  From your Foretelling we can guess everything here is at least reparable, but seriously, have you ever encountered a working First Age artifact besides the Portal Stones?"

"Never.  I suppose we're lucky it needed something fairly simple."

Eval nodded vigorously.  "As best we can tell, the One Power itself was unknown for the majority of the First Age, except through myth and outright fiction.  Imagine what they'd make of most ter'angreal.  A First Ager could hold Djedt itself in his hands and think it was nothing but an abstract symbol of authority.  We still have no idea how they made the Portal Stones work."

"Maybe it's the other way around.  Maybe they rediscovered the One Power to find something to run a device that could shift them between worlds."  Letan shook her head with wonder.  "Scientific history is filled with that kind of serendipity too."  She waved a hand at a big green button on the console.  "That's the button we thought first was the 'on' switch."

"Looks right to me.  Distinct from the others in color, shape, and location.  Try it."

The console hummed faintly for a moment, buzzed hesitantly, and then began to hum again.  Eval frowned.  "No display.  I hope that's not broken too."

Letan continued poking around at the console.  "Wait a second.  Of course.  We'd thought this was for printouts, but I'll bet--"  She reached behind it and tugged out the end of a sheet of plastic.  After about a foot had unrolled, it stiffened and lit up in patches that resolved into glyphs and pictures.  "No wonder it was so short.  And here Detosh had hypothesized that they ran out."

Eval bent over the small screen.  "Is that what it looks like?"

"Yuh-huh.  Star map.  There had to be one, unless this were a one-destination device."  Little legends marked each star, bars of white with black symbols and glyphs.  "I bet it's this one, near the center."  A tiny pictographic symbol of a wolf's head--little more than two upright triangles atop a larger one pointed down--preceded three less obvious symbols that were probably letters or numbers.

"Wait, why?"  Eval stared.  "There are dozens of those on the screen.  Why that one?"

"When do you think this thing was used last?" Letan asked with a shrug.  She dragged her finger across the screen, and the map scrolled with it.  "Touch screen, like I thought.  Easiest place to put the last destination at power-up is in the center.  Don't have a clue why so many stars would be Wolf something or other, though.  Surely they aren't a constellation; it'd fill the whole sky."

"Multi-Age artifacts can be tricky, even with all the details being forgotten," Eval said faintly.  "This discovery is part of our Age, so now we know that once upon a time, a lot of stars were called Wolf this or that.  It's possible though unlikely for that knowledge to survive another six Ages, if probably not seven.  And then, at that point, someone comes across an artifact like this, or even just a picture of the sky carved in stone, and next thing you know the stars are all Wolf again.  How do you ever figure out where that started or what it meant originally?  Anyway, you're right.  That sounds like a pretty good guess, considering we have no other leads."

"Let's see if I can highlight it or something."  The Wolf star lit up.  "Okay...good, good...now what?"

Eval shrugged.  "None of the other buttons looks distinctive to me," he said regretfully.

Letan shrugged back and poked the star image twice.  "Worth a try," she said.

Nothing happened.  "Worst case scenario, we go home without the Horn," Eval said.  "Still the find of the Age.  That's worth going to jail for."

Then the ground began to shake.

#####

"Are you ready?"

Tethet Taniquentel nodded and leaned back in the chair, her blond hair spilling across the headrest.  The Aielwoman was the first of several subjects whom Saine had lined up over the next few weeks.  That had proven the simplest answer to their troubles.  The Dashain were loyal almost to a fault and utterly harmless--yet they still desired advancement as much as anyone else, especially advancement to the status of Aes Sedai.

"Go on, Aes Sedai," Tethet said patiently.  "I won't flinch."

Saine offered her an indulgent grin, then glanced back at the two-way window Ishar was behind.  "Are you certain you want this?"

"To touch the True Source would be a wonder, Aes Sedai," said the Aielwoman.

"Well then," Saine said, and administered the injection.  "Good, good."  She patted the woman on the shoulder.  "That was it.  It should take a few minutes for the virii to spread through your bloodstream and patch your DNA."

"And once that's done, I will be able to channel?"

"Quite strongly, too."  Saine smiled at her.  "To minimize training times, we've used a donor who had the spark, and they're never less powerful than a forty-five on the Kestavon scale.  Usually higher.  Do you know anything about basic meditative exercises?  It wouldn't hurt to go ahead and practice."

"I will seek the Oneness, Saine Sedai," Tethet said hopefully.  "I so wanted to be chosen as a girl.  I was tested three times."

"Then give me a moment, please."  Saine nodded to Someshta and hurried through the door.  "Ishar?  You're watching, right?"

"I could hardly miss the biological discovery of an Age," Ishar said grumpily.  He seemed irritable lately, as if not being able to run these experiments himself had put him out of sorts.

"Well, in a few minutes history will be made," Saine reminded him, "and then no one will be able to prevent what comes next.  Even if they were to bind us never to speak of it, just the knowledge that everyone can be given the One Power is enough to turn society on its ear.  We'll be the heroes of the world."

"Even if they execute us," Ishar said with a dry chuckle.  Saine stared at him, shocked.  No one had been executed, even for mass murder, in over a thousand years.  Ishar looked back at her as if his comment had been utterly hilarious, and she managed a faint laugh.

"We should be seeing something soon," she muttered.  "She's been practicing the One--"

"Aes Sedai!"  The Nym's voice boomed out in alarm.  "Come quickly!"

Saine rushed in, confused.  "She looks fine to me, Someshta.  What--?"

"She is having a bad reaction.  I suppose it is not yet apparent to your senses."  Tethet stared up at him in horror.  Well, no one had ever designed the Nym for their bedside manner.

"All right, Tethet, you heard him.  Be still and try to hold the Oneness--"

"I can feel it, Aes Sedai," the Aiel broke in.  "I can feel saidar.  It's..it's so..."

"Thaumokinesin levels are spiking," said one of her lab techs.  They were Aiel too.  She'd not yet managed to learn all their names.

"That's normal if she's channeling the Power for the first time," Saine said.  "It'll stabilize as she learns what she's doing."

"Light, it's beautiful!  What...I hear voices, Aes Sedai."

"Voices?"  Saine scowled.  "What are they saying, Tethet?"

"I don't know...they're not really voices.  Images...I see a stream...the sun...a clear barrier of some kind...What?"  Saine stared.  Tethet's eyes were changing, the blue irises filling with patches of yellow.  That was no human eye color!

"Ishar, where are you?  Something's wrong!"  Tethet's eyes abruptly rolled backward, and she began to convulse.  "Tethet, let go!  Let the Power go!"

Shaking violently, the Aiel forced words out through chattering teeth.  "A-aes Sedai, I c-c-can not!"

Saine wove a shield, making it as dull as she could, and forced it between Tethet and the Source.  Or tried to.  The connection between the Aiel and the True Source--that much was a success, at least!--gave her a massive jolt.  Saine's head filled with howls of pain and shock.  "Ishar!  Help!  I can't shield her!"

A moment later Ishar fell atop her.  "I can't either, Saine.  I've never encountered anything like this.  Did you hear it?"

"Wolves," Saine agreed, "but in my mind.  But it's not important.  Look at her, Ishar!"  The seizure was growing worse; a stain spread across the crotch of Tethet's cadin'sor.  "Someshta, can you do anything?"  A shelf full of lab equipment toppled as Tethet began flailing about wildly with the Power.

"Certainly I can try, Saine Sedai."  The Nym cupped Tethet's head in his massive hands, crooning to her like an infant.  Slowly the convulsions eased.  "She is not well, Aes Sedai, but I believe she will live."

"Did you hear anything?" Ishar asked him.

"Not in my mind, not in the sense you mean," Someshta said, "but the wolves in the zoo three blocks away are quite agitated."  Of course he would know things like that.  "Somehow she made a connection with them as well as the Source.  And she should not have done so.  This concerns me greatly, Aes Sedai."

Ishar nodded.  "It concerns me as well, Someshta.  I will see that she is Healed, and we will delay further experiments."  The Nym sighed, nodded, and lifted Tethet into his massive arms.  The moment Someshta was out the door, a disturbing smile spread across his face.  "I haven't the faintest idea what just happened, Saine!  Not the faintest idea!  Except that, since I have no idea, we have stumbled onto something incredible!"

"Ishar, I nearly killed her!  This is horrible!  What are we going to do?"

"She's Dashain, Saine.  She won't pursue the matter if we ask her to keep it quiet while we investigate what went wrong."  Ishar had begun to dry-wash his hands vigorously, as if in anticipation.  "There must be another entire complex of genes entangled with the channeling complex.  Perhaps another set of abilities entirely.  Or more than one!  Just imagine!"

"Ishar, they're obviously not compatible!"

"Perhaps not, perhaps not.  Or it may only be that the new ability is incomplete.  That may be it.  We didn't try to activate that one.  A piece of the channeling genome turned it on by mistake.  It must be, it must be!"  Ishar began to pace frantically around the room.

"Don't you see why this is bad, Ishar?  What's the matter with you?"  Ishar stopped pacing, though he kept rubbing his hands together.  "We nearly killed her!"

Finally she seemed to have reached him.  "You're right," he said slowly.  "I never wanted to kill anyone, Saine.  I'm glad she lived.  But this has to be pursued, Saine!  We just need to be more careful about it."

Saine nodded miserably.  He wasn't entirely wrong.  But--with their limited resources--how?

#####

The vibration built to a crescendo, hurling Eval and Letan to the floor.

"What in the bloody name of the Light is happening now?"  Eval struggled to get to his feet, but he seemed to weigh a thousand pounds.

Letan's eyes had gone as wide as when the Stone was carrying them across worlds.  "Eval...I think we're lifting off.  This isn't a building.  It's a ship.  Light, Eval, it's a starship!"

Eval found himself fighting panic.  "Letan, even with the stars this close, won't it take months to get there?  We don't have months worth of food, or water, or even air!"

"You don't know that, Eval.  Who can say what might be here that we just haven't found yet?"  Still, it seemed to be sinking in that they just might be in trouble.

The increased weight slowly began to fade away.  The two of them rose to their feet and went up the ramp and to the windows, or viewscreen, or whatever the view out might be from.  They were filled almost entirely with starscape now, as Venus dwindled below them.

"What happens now?" Eval asked, half to himself, half to his companion.

She had just begun to shake her head when she abruptly stopped and pointed at the windows.  "We're turning.  We're aiming towards...that."  The field of view ahead--presumably ahead--had come to rest on a tiny pinprick of a ruby.

"It's the star you tapped on, Letan.  Any idea how far away it is?"

"I'm not certain, Eval.  It might be as close as the orbit of Neptune, or a little closer.  It'd still just be a very bright star at that distance."

Eval frowned.  "But it's within the solar system?"

Letan immediately understood.  "You'd need so much of the Power, but..."  She grabbed the railing along the window.  "Brace yourself, Eval.  Just because the Stone worked smoothly doesn't mean this will."

He put his hands on the rail.  In an instant he'd realized what was coming.  A massive surge of the One Power rose from somewhere beneath his feet.

Space shivered in front of them as a line of light that must have been a dozen stories tall scrawled itself across the starfield.  It rotated open.

And the ship hurtled forward, crossing a distance that was three distances at once.  Scores of light years in their world.  A few AU in this one.'

And through the gateway?

A hundred yards, at most.


	21. Age of Legends

The starship shuddered like a wounded animal and came to rest.

  
"Did we land," Eval questioned, "or did we dock?" Coriolis force curled his jacket about his legs. "We're rotating. There's no ordinary gravity."

  
Letan frowned curiously and scratched her forehead. "We must have landed. But I didn't see a planet. Somehow we were too close to the landing facility to get a good look." She looked up through the viewscreen and released a strangled gasp.

  
"What is it?" Eval joined her, staring. A sort of thread of sparkling light ran across the sky, straight through the great red coal of the sun. In front of it? Through it? Maybe even behind it? Eval couldn't tell, nor could he follow it to the horizon. It looked as if perhaps it connected to some immense mountain, but the mountain was too regular as well. "I can't tell what I'm looking at, Letan."

  
Letan's eyes were tearing up, and Eval didn't think it was from staring at the sun. "Your eyes are evolved for a planetary scale, Eval." Her voice quavered with awe. "It's the heartstone ring. Not a ring for a finger. A _nivenring._  A ring built around a star. To live on."

  
Eval blinked. "Why? Why heartstone? And how do you even know?"

  
"Living space. You could fit thousands of Earths on the surface of the ring. But you need something with unthinkable tensile strength. Something completely unknown to science when the idea was first proposed. But the only thing preventing us from making one now is time and cost, because there's still only one substance we have that could withstand the strain. I mean, if not for the Foretelling, maybe it could be something else, but...."

  
"What kind of technology would it take to make cuendillar on that scale?"

  
Letan shook her head. "Something unbelievable. I...the whole thing can't be heartstone. You'd need building materials. You'd need *soil*. But even so, there must be thousands of Earth-masses of cuendillar in the structure of this thing. Maybe hundreds of thousands. I can't imagine what process could have been used to produce this much."

  
Eval pressed his hand against the screen. "Well, if it's that big...there must be some kind of direction. A way marker. Some sort of facilities nearby. Or we'll never find the Horn. Maybe they left something behind, like a museum. I could see the Yaller Horn being in a museum."

  
Letan nodded, smiling. "Time to go outside." Then she frowned and hesitated. "There's a lot of debris floating around out there. And I said the ring was 'broken yet unbreakable'. Something's gone wrong since this thing was built. I'm going to put a web around us to preserve our air."

  
Eval nodded, wondering what could possibly happen to people capable of building on this scale. "Good idea. I'd guess only the underlying structure is heartstone. Then a layer of rock and soil?"

  
"Maybe several layers. But you're almost certainly right. The deep structure can't be anything but intact, but the rest could be shattered into a trillion pieces." The same deep unease he felt seemed to pass over her face. "By what, I can't imagine."

  
They stepped out into hard vacuum.  
*****  
"So this is where it all started."

  
"I suppose you could say that." Lillen Moiral was surrounded by a clockwork jungle of turning gears. "The ajah voted to give me funding, even after I told them it could take decades to produce results. Even after I told them it might be never."

  
"And you built Moiral Solutions from there." The pair of Doann Sedai--in their early twenties, perhaps--were dark of hair and eye, and as alike as mirrors. "Did you mean to go into the investment business from the start?"

  
Lillen shrugged. "Not in the sense you probably mean. I thought DREAM would be a useful tool for predicting stock futures. It...got away from me." For the most part, the patterns the gears made were a constant, the same regular rotation over and over again. But as they traveled through the newer parts, paradoxically closer to the center, there were more and more hitches. the clockwork abruptly shifting from here to there.

  
"The Dream Recursive Engine for Analytic Metacognition was a work of genius, Lillen." She was having trouble telling which one of them was speaking. "It's a shame to see it abandoned."

  
"I've never abandoned it," Lillen said with a sigh of genuine regret. "I just...moved on. It's been sitting here reconfiguring itself on this island for well over a century. The newer parts have produced some useful data, but not nearly on the scale a quantum AI should. I got on with my life. Made my fortune."

  
"Whatever made you think of building a computer in Tel'aran'rhiod?" The gears were beginning to give way to primitive circuitry. The whole system just kept expanding itself, renewing the parts closer to the center as they wore out, using newer parts. At first technicians had been required, but DREAM had been performing its own upgrades for seventy-five years now.

  
"I knew that the longer something stayed the same in the physical world, the more stable it became in Tel'aran'rhiod. But I wondered, what if something were in constant motion, in a regular pattern? Would that stabilize too? And how completely?" It was no longer possible to discern the changes, but she knew they were happening. Electrical circuits around her were shifting from on to off and back again with perfect instaneity. "I thought perhaps the spontaneous changes might function like human volition and creativity, if I could give them structure."

  
"Did it ever occur to you that you might be creating more than an artificial intelligence here?" She thought the one on the left was the more intense of the two, not that that was saying much. "DREAM could be an aspect of creation itself. The mind of Tel'aran'rhiod. Maybe even the Creator manifesting herself."

  
"I admit I haven't thought about that sort of mystical business since I was a little girl and I first began studying the Unseen World," Lillen muttered. "I...I'm a practical sort of person."

  
The one on the right raised an eyebrow at that. "Do you say so? I would have called DREAM a magnificent flight of fancy myself. But I will take your word for it."  
*****  
"Glad you thought of that," Eval said. He couldn't see her web of saidar, but a few feet away from them the air crackled and hissed, breaking carbon dioxide back down into oxygen and a faint mist of carbon soot. "Otherwise we'd be choking to death."

  
Letan made a half-smile, acknowledging his comment and not much more. Shattered walls stood a few yards in front of them, and off to the right a wall that appeared intact. The latter was covered in letters carved deep into the stone. "I don't suppose you can read any of that."

  
Eval scanned it cautiously. "Nothing...I don't know. But you'd think people this advanced would understand that language could change. And be beyond stone carvings." He stretched out a hand, feeling the rough surface...and it shifted beneath his palm. Eval leaped back and stared.

  
"I'm not sure if that's clearer or not," Letan said, shuddering. The writing had altered before their eyes. She was right--the significance of the text was difficult to understand. Or maybe, now that he could see what was written, he didn't want to.

  
REMEMBER  
REBUILD  
REBEL

WE BUILT HERE FOR ALL MANKIND  
TO BREAK THE CYCLE OF FORGETFULNESS  
AND SPIT IN THE CREATOR'S FACE

IF YOU FIND US DEAD  
START AGAIN  
BREAK THE WHEEL

Letan knelt before the...monument. It must be that. A memorial to this place. How many times had the heartstone ring been built, shattered, and built again? But by the Creator's own rules, it could never be entirely destroyed. After a few moments, he got down on his knees beside her. "We don't yet know what happened here."

  
"I'm not certain I want to know, Eval. I...these people knew about the Wheel of Time. And it sickened them. They were tired of climbing the ladder of knowledge only to forget all over again when the Wheel turned. So they built here, built it from the one thing the Wheel couldn't destroy. And yet they still lost. What happened here? And, Eval...why is this the resting place of the Horn? Are we ready to find out?"

  
"Your Foretelling led us here. Ready or not, we must need the Horn." Eval clenched and unclenched his fists. Certainly this place was unnerving. He thought perhaps dead men walking would be easier to face. Those, at least, he could fight. Eval forced himself to raise a hand and point onward. "Into the ruins. We have to find what we came for."

  
Letan's expression was blank. "I suppose we do."  
*****  
Ared Mosinel glanced in the mirror on his way out the door. He was a handsome enough fellow, it was true. Still, it was hard to believe he had been naive enough to think his luck with women was natural. His fire-gold hair and skinny frame were striking, but not the kind of thing teenage girls usually preferred.  
* * *  
There had been plenty of those in his youth in Aren Dashar. Always the prettiest, to his mind at least. He'd been so awkward, with his squat frame, his frog voice, and his pimply dark skin. It was hard to believe he'd risen to hold the Third Rod of Dominion.  
* * *  
Still, he thought, could any boy be blamed for not questioning that any girl he asked was perfectly willing to fall into bed with him, sallow skin or not? At least his straight black hair was good for running fingers through. He had no more way of knowing that it was a contrivance of the Power than if he'd gotten his mother to buy him a jo-car.  
* * *  
Years he'd spent, thinking the Elders really meant it when they said the Creator made no mistakes. Years believing they weren't lying about the claim that the gift you manifested, you were meant to have, and not seek further power. And then Elder Murabi had cast him out of the Incastar, accusing him of being a rapist! Well, his business successes in the years since weren't so easily taken away, even if they did come from exotic animal sales.  
* * *  
There hadn't been a thing odd about it, no matter how easy he was to misgender. Even the Hall knew that some women loved women, just as one day they would have to admit the existence of trans men and allow him to procure Nemene Damendar's services.  
* * *  
Of course, having learned what hypocrites the Incastar were, he'd left Aren Dashar of his own free will. Piloting a sho-wing was a better life anyway.  
* * *  
Still, sometimes he wondered if he was the real Ared. Just as he was sure each of his duplicates did. But did it matter? Each shared in being him.  
* * *  
No longer were they meaningless souls riding the meaningless Wheel. Ared paused to think on the strange news from the north, about Elan Morin and his odd claims. Perhaps he should look into that.  
* * *  
A simple matter. One of him could Travel there. Ared Mosinel, most powerful man in the world, sat back and smiled. He had plenty of time.  
*****  
Letan no longer had any idea what to expect here. They had passed beyond the realm of any science she understood. There was no sign of working power sources or cables. The building itself was a ruin, stone slabs barely standing in the lower gravity.

  
But the plinths worked. She brushed against one face and a viewportal sprang to life. Much of the data was corrupted. The playback skipped from image to image, vanishing into static and reappearing. Still, there was enough.

  
"...mining late-stage stars for iron..."

  
"...final product of the fusion cycle..."

  
A cocoon of the power emanating from a starship, wrapping itself around a vast sphere.

  
"...heartstone production high enough to theoretically duplicate Draupnir Station nine times a year..."

  
"...no theoretical reason the upward spiral should end short of galactic colonization..."

  
No theoretical reason. Only the Wheel of Time. Which had to turn. Only the mad destroyed themselves, and only the phoenix lived forever. Every Age had to end.

  
The end must be approaching now.

  
Letan ignored the row of plinths and strode to the end. No doubt there was a way to access the whole remaining database from any one, but she didn't know it. Here at the end was the most likely explanation of what had happened here.

  
She put a hand to the last plinth, but it was dead. Chance? Intent? But the wall beyond it looked faintly different in sheen. Were these computing devices based on molecular machinery? The Power? Something else, or more than one thing?

  
Letan touched the wall, and the world vanished.  
*****  
"So why did you ask to come here?" Lillen said with a shrug. "Are you hoping to buy the system? I guarantee it's worth more than any individual could ever pay. Or do you just have some use you want to put it to?"

  
The pair exchanged a glance. "We apologize for intruding. We were just engaging in a mapping project and found this island. It's just that...well, when were you here last?"  
"It's been a few years." She did her best to show no irritation. They doubtless had a point, or thought they did, and there was no rush.

  
"Did the machinery reach the center then?"

  
"Of...of course it did. Doesn't it now?" Had there been a breakdown of some kind? If so, she'd have to reward them for calling it to her attention. But why hadn't the technicians informed her?

  
"There's a barren spot about six feet wide, Lillen Sedai. And in the very center...we don't know. We caught a glimpse of something sparkling. It could be a system failure...or the opposite of one. Some new advance in computing."

  
They were near the center now. Lillen quickened her pace. It wasn't that implausible; DREAM had always been intended to be a self-evolving system. If it had passed beyond conventional computers, she could be worth many times what she was now, and earn a third name to boot. "Thank you for bringing it to my attention." Something new to sell...that would be fantastic!

  
She saw the light, first. Then she realized that she was feeling it as well. Not ordinary light at all.

  
DREAM was channeling the One Power.  
*****  
The sky was full of Power.

  
Letan knew it was difficult, even now, to reproduce webs of the Power in a recording device. Yet she could see them now. Webs of saidar. Webs of saidin. And the army that wove them. Men and women in uniform descending on Draupnir Station, their insignia an ancient oil lamp with a flickering flame. Here and there, aura banners surrounded those who must be officers. A dragon. A bird of fire. A great bear.

  
Fire beyond fire roared past her, burning through the bedrock of the nivenring. "Worship evil's might!" she heard the man roar. "Beware my power!" Only the bare heartstone remained where that bar of light had gone.

  
And a single pure tone rang out.

  
"The Yaller Horn," Eval said behind her. She had almost forgotten in this chaos that he even existed. "It must be."

  
Letan closed her eyes. The hollow feeling in the pit of her belly told her who had sounded it.

  
Eval let out a gasp. "Letan, you have to see this. Light burn me! It's Man of Steel!" Reluctantly she opened her eyes again, looked where he pointed. "The shield of truth." He indicated the triangular emblem on the black-haired man's chest. "The sword of justice." This, the man carried in his left hand. "And the crown of the Way of Merrick. I never understood that one. Half the legends say Man of Steel followed the Way of Merrick, but the other half say he hated Merrick and sent Mosk against him."

  
"Crown?"

  
Eval indicated the winged headband Man of Steel wore. "Look at all of them. There must be well over a hundred." Against her better judgment Letan scanned her eyes over them. There was a woman with a red hourglass emblem on her torso. Here went a short ugly man with two blades emerging from his arms and a woman with a blond braid, a bow, and a bandolier of wooden stakes, of all things. A man with jet-black hair and a green robe-and-cowl bowed briefly to the general with the dragon banner, but she could not hear what the two said, though the former smiled as if they were old friends. A man clad in metal power armor struck at the nivenring with hammer and spike, and the whole structure rang like a bell. "I have to wish I could see the Wolf Prince somewhere. That'd clear up a lot."

  
"Eval..."

  
"Of course, no one even knows what he looked like. The only images of him we have show him wearing a conical purple hood. Looks ridiculous. Can't say I see that here. Light, is that Bonjian?" He pointed excitedly at a lone Ogier wielding a great long-handled axe.

  
"Eval."

  
"Look, isn't that the Amazon Princess? She's using Compulsion! That's what the lasso was about!" Letan glanced at her and looked away. Somehow that particular image made her more uneasy than any of the others.

  
"Eval! Don't you see what's happening?"

  
Finally she had his attention. Eval blinked and scowled. "They're not defending the ring, are they?"

  
"...no, Eval. they're not. They're attacking it. That's why the Horn is here." The images began to fray, heroes vanishing into great rents in the scenery. "They didn't come to protect this place. Or those lantern warriors either. 'Spit in the Creator's face. Break the Wheel.'

  
"This place is a ruin because the heroes destroyed it."  
*****  
Ared Mosinel made his way quietly through the Hall of Servants with his stack of paperwork. No one looked twice at him. Theoretically paperwork was obsolete. In practice, it would probably always be useful to have hard copies of many kinds of documents. Most of them were printed out after the fact. Ared usually did his own filing, despite having lots of it to do.

  
It was good cover.

  
"Denneth!" Rexam Wol's smile was grandfatherly. His intellect was nothing special, but he did have a talent for smoothing over interpersonal problems. Everyone liked Rexam Wol, save those who were interested in pressing forward some particular agenda that would have to wait until he was replaced. "Denneth, thank you. I really ought to go over that treaty. I'm certain Ilyena has everything sewn up, but we do need to make sure it's written down correctly." He took the huge sheaf and squinted at it. Rexam's eyesight was at the minimum standard, but he showed no interest in having it adjusted. Perhaps the squinting was good for his image as everyone's favorite elderly relative. "Last thing we need in a treaty with Sindhol is loopholes."

  
Ared smiled back at him. He'd been using this cover identity for years, since taking the Denneth body. It wasn't as if Denneth had been anyone who was going to amount to anything. He wasn't even that strong in the Power, and his one Talent--communicating over a distance--was easily duplicated with a callbox. "Certainly not, sir."

  
Rexam began to rotate his chair toward the computer interface, and Ared lifted one hand, weaving Air. The blade slid neatly between Rexam's ribs, and the First Among Servants slid to the floor in silence.

  
Ared Mosinel watched for a moment to confirm. Then he did the same.  
*****  
Letan was on her knees again. The torrent of images had faded, leaving them before the blank wall. Eval sat down beside her. "They must have had a reason."

  
"Yes, Eval. They had a reason. These people didn't want the Wheel to keep turning. They didn't want to forget everything. So the heroes of the Yaller Horn had to preserve the Wheel. At all costs." Tears were streaking down her face, but there was little sadness in her tone. Bitterness, perhaps. Her jaw was clenched, and she kept baring her teeth. "But the message survived. 'Remember. Rebuild. Rebel.' We have to keep faith, Eval. We can't let it die now."

  
Eval stared at her as if he'd never seen her before. But she was right. In his mind, libraries burned. Monuments and cities crumbled to dust. Men and women died. All for the sake of the Wheel of Time. A wheel that turned on and on, crushing everything and everyone beneath it. "We deserve better," he murmured. He was supposed to be the angry one. The one who burst out in fire at the first provocation. But Letan's fists were clenched, and all he could feel was numb. "We deserve better."

  
"Where's the Horn?" Letan snarled. "Where's the damn Horn? I'm going to grind that thing to powder."

  
Eval wasn't sure that was possible. The Horn seemed likely to be some transtemporal artifact. "That wall," he said after a moment. "The memorial wall. If they preserved the Horn at all, it would be there."  
*****  
In principle, she supposed, it wasn't so odd. Ter'angreal made use of the Power all the time. Normally they were produced by a specific handful of mechanisms, but there were a number of anomalies and legendary objects whose origins were unknown. Perhaps the technicians had even unwittingly provided DREAM with components.

  
That didn't change what DREAM was doing. She could not see weaves, any more than she could have with many other ter'angreal, but she could feel the complexity of what was happening inside it. The shifting patterns, the flux of the web. DREAM was computing data, and it was using the One Power as a medium.

  
She burst into the clearing. The ground here was bare of all cover, mechanical or living. And at the very center... Lillen bent down to study what seemed to be growing out of the unshaped rock. Three tiny concentric rings--no, there were the emerging tips of a fourth, just beginning to sprout--of miniature crystalline rods. She stretched out a hand to touch it, but met a barrier inches above, as if she had tried to reach into a stedding here. Lillen  
* * *  
Lillen was thirteen, lying on the beach, watching the clouds roll by, shifting in endless fractal patterns. She focused her thoughts on those clouds, transforming them: a monkey, a sho-wing, the rings of Saturn. The Unseen World was infinitely reactive, her teachers said. But then why did it change so much on its own?

  
The wisps of cloud reverted to their normal shapes as she let them drift. How much did they match the real world's clouds? Though that was a fallacy, they told her. If anything, Tel'aran'rhiod was the real world. Anyway, it couldn't possibly emulate actual clouds when her doll collection didn't even stay in the same place yet.

  
It made her think of the simulation problem again. A simulation always ran slower than the original. But then on what did the original run, and was there something for it to be slower than? Maybe that had something to do with the variations in time, but then which was the simulation, the waking world or the dreaming one?

  
There was something in that. Lillen watched the clouds and wondered.  
* * *  
leapt back. What had that been? The tiny rods were flashing with light. She remembered that day well enough; it was the day she'd first come up with the concept of DREAM. But that had been as if she'd lived it over again!

  
"Lillen Sedai? Are you okay?"

  
She gave another start. "It's yours," she snapped. That was too harsh. "Just...take it. Do what you want with it. I don't have any use for this thing any more. It's yours." Lillen hated it when other people saw her shaken up, but what was there to do? "I've got work to do."  
*****  
In the end, it wasn't even on their side of the ship.

  
Searching the monument turned up nothing at all. Puzzled and distressed, Eval and Letan returned to the vessel and only then noticed the single suit of pressure armor resting on the ground. Its inhabitant had long since crumbled to dust, but its gloves were wrapped unceremoniously around an artifact that surely deserved some greater honor than to lie here in the silence, a golden horn with a tracery of silver lettering.

  
"We could have left by the other door," Eval said with amused but subdued wonder, "and we'd never have noticed the rest."

  
Letan reached down to take the Horn, her mouth twisted with contempt. "I suppose it is yellow, at that." The brush of her hand against the pressure suit triggered some ancient power circuit, the gauntlets lighting up faintly with an image of coiling scales. "You, huh? Beware your power?" She gave the suit a kick, knocking it over. "Well, we know Fire won't melt it. I'm channeling a cable of that into it right now and it's not even heating up. We're going to have to take it back with us."

  
"We'll have to keep it a secret if we mean to destroy it," Eval said with a sigh. He'd been so looking forward to revealing it to the archaeological community. "And I guess this entire trip, too."

  
"Well, then, we keep it a secret," Letan snarled. "This...all of this...it deserves to be rebuilt, and it will be, but it's waited for Ages. It can hold on another couple of months."

  
"May I see it?" Eval reached out his hands, and she let him have it with a grimace. "'The grave is no bar to my call.' Perfect modern script. Did it change, I wonder, like the monument? Or was it originally created in the Second Age?" Letan shot him a glare. "I know. Still...what a shame."

  
In silence they reboarded. In silence they departed.

  
And the heartstone ring spun on as it had for millennia untold.  
*****  
A Gateway opened, and the infirmary erupted in chaos.

  
"Looks like a murder-suicide!" the paramedic called out. "Never heard of an assassination like that!"

  
"Rexam Wol?" Who could possibly have cared enough to kill the man now? The idea of him serving out a full term was almost laughable. "I never thought to see you here," she breathed. "But let's make that charge 'attempted murder', shall we?"

  
The table was soaked in arterial blood. Not a soul would be surprised or suspicious if he died in her care, days or even weeks later. Behind her mask of dispassion, Nemene Damendar smiled. And went to work.


End file.
